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"The Author of the 'Schonberg-Cotta Family'wishes it to be generally known among the readers of herbooks in America, that the American Editions issued byMr. M. W. Dodd, of New York, alone have the Author'ssanction."

This Volume will be followed next year by
a supplementary Volume covering the
period of the Commonwealth and
the Restoration, and embracing
incidents connected with
the Early History
of this country.

Each of the above belongs to the "Cotta Family Series,"and are uniform in size and binding.

Poems—"The Women of the Gospels," etc.With
other Poems not before published. 1 Vol. 16mo.

INTRODUCTORY.

Yesterday at noon, when the houseand all the land were still, and the men,with the lads and lasses, were away atthe harvesting, and I sat alone, withbarred doors, for fear of the Indians (who have oflate shown themselves unfriendly), I chanced tolook up from my spinning-wheel through the openwindow, across the creek on which our housestands. And something, I scarce know what, carriedme back through the years and across the seasto the old house on the borders of the Fen Country,in the days of my childhood. It may have beenthe quiet rustling of the sleepy air in the longgrasses by the water-side that wafted my spiritback to where the English winds sigh and soughamong the reeds on the borders of the fens; it mayhave been the shining of the smooth water,furrowed by the track of the water-fowl, that set mymemory down beside the broad Mere, whose gleamwe could see from my chamber window. It mayhave been the smell of this year's hay, which camein in sweet, soft gusts through the lattice, thatfloated me up to the top of the tiny haystack, madeof the waste grass in the orchard at old NetherbyManor, at the foot of which Roger, my brother,used to stand while I turned up the hay, assisted byour Cousin Placidia (when she was condescending),and by our Aunt Gretel, my mother's sister,whenever we had need of her. Most probably it wasthe hay. For, as the excellent Mr. Bunyan hasillustriously set forth in his work on the Holy War,the soul hath five gates through which she holdethparlance with the outer world. And correspondentwith these outer gates from the sensible world inspace, meseemeth, are as many inner gates into theinner, invisible world of thought and time; whichinner gates open simultaneously with the outer, bythe same spring. But of all the mystic springswhich unlock the wondrous inward world, none actwith such swift, secret magic as those of the Gateof Odors. There stealeth in unobserved some delicateperfume of familiar field flower or garden herb,and straightway, or ere she is aware, the soul isafar off in the world of the past, gathering posiesamong the fields of childhood, or culling herbs inthe old corner of the old garden, to be laid, byhands long since cold, in familiar chambers longsince tenanted by other owners.

Wherefore, I deem, it was the new, sweet smellof our New England hay which more than anythingcarried me back to the old house in Old England,and the days so long gone by.

With my heart in far-off days, I continued myspinning, as women are wont, the hand moving themore swiftly for the speed wherewith the thoughtstravel, until my thoughts and my work came to apause together by the flax on my distaff beingexhausted. I went to an upper chamber for a freshstock, and while there my eye lighted on an oldchest, in the depths whereof lay many little volumesof an old journal written by my hand through aseries of buried years.

An irresistible attraction drew me to them; andas I knelt before the old chest, and turned overthese yellow leaves, in some cases, eaten with worms,and read the writing—the earlier portions of it inlarge, laborious, childish characters, as if each letterwere a solemn symbol of weighty import—the laterscrawled hastily in the snatched intervals of a busyand tangled life—I seemed to be looking through aseries of stained windows into the halls of an ancientpalace. On the windows were the familiar portraitsof a little eager girl, and a young maiden familiarto me, yet strange. But the paintings were alsowindow-panes; and, after the first glance, thepainted panes seemed to vanish, and I saw only thepalace chambers on which they looked. Not emptychambers, or shadowy, or silent, but solid, andfresh, and vivid, and full of the stir of much life;so that, when I laid down those old pages, andlooked out through the declining light over thesenew shores, across this new sea, towards the far-offEngland which still lives beyond, it seemed for amoment as if the sun setting behind the wide westernwoods, the strip of golden corn-fields, the reapersreturning slowly over the hill, the Indianburial-mounds beside the creek, the trim new house, myold quiet self, were the shadows, and that Old World,in which my spirit had been sojourning, still theliving and the real.

Neighbor Hartop's cheery voice roused me outof my dream, and I hurried down to open the door,and to set out the harvest supper.

But as I look at the old crumpled papers againto-day, the past lives again once more before me,and I will not let it die.

There is an hour in the day when the sun has set,and all the dazzle of day is gone, and the dusk ofnight has not set in, when I think the world lookslarger and clearer than at any other time. The skyseems higher and more heavenly than at otherhours; and yet the earth, tinted here and there onits high places with heavenly color, seems more tobelong to heaven. The little landscape within ourhorizon becomes more manifestly a portion of awider world. And is there not such an hour inlife? Before it passes let me use the light, and fixin my mind the scenes which will so soon vanishinto dreams and silence.

"The twenty-eighth day of March, in the year of ourLord sixteen hundred and thirty-seven.—On this day, twelveyears since, King Charles was proclaimed King at WhitehallGate, and in Cheapside; the while the rain fell inheavy showers. My father heard the herald; and myAunt Dorothy well remembers the rain, because it spoileda slashed satin doublet of my father's (the last he everbought, having since then been habited more soberly);also because many of the people said the weather was ofevil promise for the new reign. But father saith that isa superstitious notion, unworthy of Christian people.

"Also my father was present at the king's coronation,on the 5th of February in the following year. Our FrenchQueen would not enter the Abbey on account of herPopish faith. When the king was presented bareheadedto the people, all were silent, none crying God save theKing, until the Earl of Arundel bade them; which myfather saith was a worse omen than if the clouds poureddown rivers."

"April the tenth.—The brindled cow hath died, leavingan orphan calf. Aunt Gretel saith I may bring up thecalf for my own, with the help of Tib the dairy-woman."

The diversity between these entries recalls manythings to me. On the day before the first entry,father brought to Roger my brother, my CousinPlacidia, and me, three small books stitched neatlytogether, and told us these were for us to use tonote down any remarkable events therein. "For,"said he, "we live in strange and notable times, andyou children may see things before you are grown,yea, and perchance do or suffer such things ashistory is made of."

The stipulation was, that we were each to writeindependently, and not to borrow from the other;which was a hard covenant for me, who seldomthen meditated or did anything without theco-operation or sanction of Roger.

After much solitary pondering, therefore, Iarrived at the conclusion that history especiallyconcerns kings and queens, and lesser people only asconnected with them. That is, when there arekings and queens. In the old Greek history Iremembered there were heroes who were not kings,but I supposed they did instead. But the Englishhistory was all made up of what happened to thekings. One was shot while hunting; another wasmurdered at Berkeley Castle; the little princeswere smothered in the Tower. King EdwardIII. gained a great victory at Creçy in France; KingHenry V. gained another at Agincourt. Of courseother people were concerned in these things. SirWalter Tyrrel shot the arrow by accident thatkilled King William, and some wicked people musthave murdered King Edward and the little princeson purpose. And, of course, there were armies whohelped King Edward and King Henry to gain theirvictories; but none of these people would havebeen in history, I thought, except as connectedwith the kings. At the same time I thought it wasof no use to relate things which no one belongingto me had had anything to do with, because anyone else could have done that without my takingthe trouble to write a note-book at all. Thereforeit seemed to me that my father, and even my father'sslashed satin doublet, fairly became historical byhaving been present at the King's proclamation,and Aunt Dorothy by having commented thereon.

The second entry was caused by an entirely differenttheory of history, having its origin in a talkwith Roger. Roger said that we never can tellwhat things are historical until afterwards, and thattherefore the only way was to note down whathonestly interests us. If these things proveafterwards to be things which interest the world, ourstory of them becomes part of the world's story,and, as such, history to the people who care for us.But to note down feeble echoes of far-off greatevents, in which we think we ought to be interested,is no human speech at all, Roger thought, but meremonkey's imitative chattering. Every one, Rogerthinks, sees everything just a little differently fromany one else, and therefore if every one woulddescribe truly the little bit they do see, in that way,by degrees, we might have a perfect picture. Butto copy what others have seen is simply to departwith every fresh copy a little further from theoriginal. If, for instance, said he, the nurse of JuliusCæsar had told us nursery stories of what JuliusCæsar did when he was a little boy, it would havebeen history; but the opinions of Julius Cæsar'snurse on the politics of the Roman republic wouldprobably not have been history at all, but idle tattle.

With respect to kings and queens being the onlytrue subjects for history, also, Roger was veryscornful. He had lately been paying a visit toMr. John Hampden, Mr. Oliver Cromwell, and othersof my father's friends, and he had returned full ofindignation against the tyranny of the court andthe prelates. The nation, he said wise men thought,was not made for the king, but the king for thenation. And, to say nothing of the Greek history,the Bible history was certainly not filled up withkings and queens, but with shepherds, herdsmen,preachers, and soldiers; or if with kings, with kingswho had been shepherds and soldiers, and whowere saints and heroes as well as kings.

All which reasoning decided me to make my nextentry concerning the calf of the brindled cow,which at that time was the subject in the worldwhich honestly interested me the most. If myfather, or Roger, or Cousin Placidia, or Aunt Gretel,ever became historical personages (and, as Rogersaid, who could tell?), then anecdotes concerningthe calf of the cow which my father owned andAunt Gretel cherished, and which Cousin Placidiathought it childish to care so much about, mightbecome, in a secondary sense, historical also. Atall events, I resolved I would not be like JuliusCæsar's nurse, babbling of politics.

"August 4, 1637.—Dr. Antony has spent the eveningwith us, and is to remain some days, at father's entreaty,to recruit his strength; Aunt Dorothy having knowledgeof medicinal herbs, and Aunt Gretel of savory dishes,which may be of use to him. He hath narrowly escapedthe jail-sickness, having of late visited many afflicted goodpeople in the prisons through the country, as is hiscustom. 'Sick and in prison,' Dr. Antony saith, 'and yevisited me,' is plain enough to read by the dimmest light,whatever else is hard to understand. He told us of twostrange things which happened lately. At least they seemvery strange to me.

"In the Palace Yard at Westminster, on the 30th oflast June (while Roger and I were making hay in thepleasant sunshine of the orchard), Dr. Antony saw threegentlemen stand in the pillory. The pillory is a woodenframe set up on a platform, where wicked people arefastened helplessly like savage dogs, with their heads andhands coming through holes, to make them look ridiculous,that people may mock and jeer at them. But fatherand Dr. Anthony did not think these gentlemen wicked,only at worst a little hasty in speech. And the people didnot think them ridiculous; they did not mock and jeerat them, but kept very still, or wept. Their names wereMr. Prynne, a gentleman at the bar, Dr. John Bastwick, aphysician; and Mr. Burton, a clergyman of a parish inLondon. There they stood many hours while the hangmancame to each of them in turn and sawed off theirears with a rough knife, and then burnt in two cruelletters on their cheeks, S.L., for seditious libeler.Dr. Anthony did not say the three gentlemen made one cry orcomplaint, but bore themselves like brave men. But thebravest of all, I think, was Mrs. Bastwick, the doctor'swife. She stayed on the scaffold, and bore to see all herhusband's pain without a word or moan, lest she shouldmake him flinch, and then received his ears in her lap,and kissed his poor wounded face before all the people.Sweet, brave heart! I would fain have her home amongstus here, and kiss her faithful hands like a queen's, and laymy head on her brave heart, as if it were my mother's!The sufferers made no moan; but the people broke theirpitiful silence once with an angry shout, and many timeswith low, hushed groans, as if the pain and shame weretheirs (Dr. Anthony said), and they would remember it.And Mr. Prynne, when the irons were burning his face,said to the executioner, 'Cut me, tear me, I fear not thee;I fear the fire of hell.' Mr. Burton spoke to the peopleof God and his truth, and how it was worth while tosuffer rather than give up that. And at last he nearlyfainted, but when he was borne away into a house near,he said, with good cheer, 'It is too hot to last.' (Hemeant the persecution.) But the three gentlemen are nowshut up in three prisons—in Launceston, Lancaster, andCaernarvon. And father and Dr. Antony say it isArchbishop Laud who ordered it all to be done. But couldnot the king have stopped it if he liked?

"But will Roger and I ever turn over the hay again inthe pleasant June sunshine, without thinking how itburned down on those poor, maimed and wounded gentlemen?And one day I do hope I may see brave Mistress Bastwickand tell her how I love and honor her, and how thethought of her will help me to be brave and patient morethan a hundred sermons.

"Dr. Antony's other story was of one Jenny or JanetGeddes, not a gentlewoman, for she kept an apple stall inEdinburgh streets, and, moreover, does not appear to haveused good language at all. The Scotch, it seems, do notlike bishops, and, indeed, will not have bishops. ButArchbishop Laud and the king will make them. OnSunday, the 23d of last July, a month since, one ofArchbishop Laud's bishops began the collect for the day inSt. Giles's Cathedral, Edinburgh. Jenny Geddes had broughther folding stool (on which she sat by her apple stall, Isuppose) into the church, and when the bishop came outin his robes (which Archbishop Laud likes of many colors,while the Scotch, it seems, will have nothing but black),she took up her stool and flung it at the bishop's head,calling the service, the mass and the bishop a thief, andwishing him very ill wishes in a curious Scottish dialect,which, I suppose, I do not quite understand; for itsounded like swearing, and if Jenny Geddes was a good woman(although not a gentlewoman) she would scarcely, I shouldthink, swear, at least not in church. Whether the bishopwas hurt or not, no one seems to know or care. I supposethe stool did not reach his head. But it stopped theservice. For all the people rose in great fury, not againstJenny Geddes, but against the bishop, and the archbishop,and the prayer-book, and against all bishops and allprayers in books, not in Edinburgh only, but throughout theland. Which shows, father said, that a great deal ofangry talk had been going on beforehand in the streetsaround Jenny Geddes' apple stall. There must always besome angry person, father said, to throw the folding stool,but no one heeds the angry person unless there issomething to be angry about."

And about the passages in my own history whichit led to, not a word. Indeed, throughout thesejournals I notice that it is more what they recallthan what they say which brings back the past tome. I wonder if it is not thus with most diaries.For to keep to Roger's rule of writing the thingswhich really interest us at the time seems to mescarcely possible; because at the time we scarcelyknow what things are most deeply interesting us,and if we do, they are the very things we cannotwrite about. Underneath the things we see andthink and speak about are the great, dim, silentplaces out of which we ourselves are growing intobeing, and where God is at work. The things weare beginning to see we can not see, the things weare feeling without knowing what we feel, the dim,struggling thoughts we cannot utter or even think.Without form and void is the state of a world beingcreated. When the world is created, the creationis a history, and can be written. While it is beingcreated, it is chaos, and from without can only bedescribed as without form and void—from within,in the chaos, not at all. The Creator onlyunderstands chaos, and knows the chaos before the newcreation from the mere waste and ruin of the old.

Because to understand the present would be toforesee the future. To see through the chaos wouldbe to foresee the new creation.

Wherefore it seems to me all diaries are of valuenot as records, but as suggestions. And allself-examination resolves itself at last into prayer, saying,"What I see not, teach Thou me."

The passages in my history that this story ofDr. Antony led to, arise before me as clearly as if theyhappened yesterday, although in the Journal not ahint of them is given.

The Sunday after Dr. Antony had told us thoseterrible things about the sufferings in the pillory,Roger and I had gone to our usual Sunday afternoonperch in an apple-tree in the corner of theorchard furthest from the house. We had takenwith us for our contemplation a very terribledelineation, which was the nearest approach to apicture Aunt Dorothy would let us have on theSabbath-day. This she permitted us, partly, I believe,because it was not the likeness of anything inheaven or earth (nor, I hope, under the earth),and partly on account of the very awful thoughtsit was calculated to inspire.

It was a huge branching thing like our old familytree. But at the root of the tree, where would bethe name of Adam or Noah, or Æneas of Troy, orCassibelaun, or whoever else was recognized asthe head of the family, stood the sacred name ofthe Holy Trinity. From this trunk forked off twoleading branches, one representing the wicked andthe other the just, with the words written alongthem to show that the very same mercies andmeans of grace which produce repentance and faithand love in the hearts of the just, producebitterness and false security and hatred of God in thehearts of the wicked. Further and further thebranches diverged until one ended in an angel withwings, and the other in a mouth of a horriblehobgoblin with a whale's mouth, a dragon's claws,and a lion's teeth, and both were united by thelines,—

* A similar tree is to be seen in the beginning of Bunyan'aPilgrim's Progress, in the edition of 1698.

Most terrible was this delineation to me, sittingthat sunny autumn day in the apple-tree, especiallybecause if you were once on the wrong branch, itwas not at all pointed out how you were ever toget on the right. All seemed as irrevocable andinevitable as that point in our own pedigree whereEdwy, the eldest son, became a Benedictine monkand vanished into a thin flourish, and Walter, thesecond son, married Adalgiva, heiress of NetherbyManor, and branched off into us. And it looked soterribly (with unutterable terror I felt it) as ifit mattered as little to the Holy Trinity whatbecame of any one of us, as to Cassibelaun or Noahwhat became of his descendants, Edwy or Walter.

So it happened that Roger and I sat veryawe-stricken and still in our perch in the apple-tree,while the wind fluttered the green leaves aroundus, and the sunbeams ripened the rosy apples fortheir work, and then danced in and out on the grassbelow for their play. And I remember as if it wereyesterday how the thought shuddered through myheart, that the same sun which was shining onRoger and me, on that last 30th of June, making hayin the orchard, was at that very same momentscorching those poor wounded gentlemen in thepillory in the Palace Yard, and not losing a whitof its glory to us by all the anguish it was inflicting,like a blazing furnace, on them. And if thisfearful tree were true, did it not seem as if it werethe same with God?

I sat some time silent under the weight of thisdread. It made me shiver with cold in thesunshine, and at length I could keep it in no longer,and said to Roger, in a whisper, for I was half afraidto hear my own words,—

At that moment something shook the tree, and Iclung to Roger in terror. I could not see what it wasfrom among the thick leaves where we were sitting.I trembled at the echo of my own voice. The darkthoughts within seemed to have brought night withits nameless terrors into the heart of day. ButRoger leant down from the branch, and said,—

"Cousin Placidia! For shame! You shookthe tree on purpose. I heard the apples fall onthe ground, and you are picking them up. That ischeating."

"I came against the stem of the tree byaccident, and perhaps I did shake it a little morethan I need, when I heard what Olive said. Theywere very wicked words, and I shall tell Aunt Dorothy."

"You may tell any one you like," said Rogerindignantly. "Olive did not mean to say anythingwrong. You are cruel enough to sit in theStar-chamber, Placidia."

"She is exactly like our gray cat," he continuedto me, as she glided away, "with her soft, noiselessways, and her stealthy, steady following of her owninterests. When the fowl-house was burnt downlast year, and the turkeys were screaming, and thehens cackling, and every one flying hither andthither trying to save somebody or something, Isaw the gray cat quietly licking her lips in a cornerover a poor singed chicken. I believe she thoughtthe whole thing had been set on foot to roast hersupper. And Placidia would have done preciselythe same. If London were on fire, and she in it, Ibelieve she would contrive to get her supper roastedon the cinders. And the provoking thing is, shethinks no one sees."

Roger was not often vehement in speech, butPlacidia was our standing grievance, his and mine.There were certain little unfairnesses, not quitecheating, certain little meannesses, not quitedishonesties, and certain little prevarications, not quitelies, which always excited his greatest wrath,especially when, as often happened, I was the loser orthe sufferer by them.

"Do you think she will tell Aunt Dorothy?" Isaid, for that very morning Placidia and I had hada quarrel, she having pinched my arm where it couldnot be seen, and I having to my shame bitten herfinger where it could be seen.

"I don't know, and I don't care," said Rogerloftily. "What is the good of minding? I supposewe must all go through a certain quantity ofpunishment, Olive, and it is to be hoped it will dous good for the future, if we did not deserve it bythe past. At least Aunt Dorothy says so. Go onwith what you were saying."

"Oh, Roger, I wish I knew why God did not destroythe devil in the beginning, or at least not lethim come into the garden. Because, then, nothingwould have gone wrong, would it? Eve would nothave eaten the fruit, Mr. Prynne and Dr. Bastwickwould not have been set in the pillory. And Ishould not, most likely, have quarrelled withPlacidia, because, I suppose, Placidia would not havebeen provoking."

"I wish I knew why my Father lets CousinPlacidia live with us, and always be making us dowrong," said Roger.

"She is an orphan, and some one musttake care of her, you know," I said. "Besides,surely, Father has reasons, only we don't alwaysknow."

"And I suppose God has reasons," said Rogerreverently, "only we don't always know."

"But the devil is all bad," said I, "and willnever be better; and Cousin Placidia may. Itcould not be for the devil's own sake God did notkill him, for he only gets worse; and I do not seehow it could be for ours."

"The devil was not always the devil, Olive," saidRoger, after thinking a little while. "He was anangel at first."

"Then, O Roger," said I eagerly, for the perplexitylay heavy on my heart, "why did not God stopthe devil from ever being the devil? That wouldhave been better than anything."

"It cannot be because God could not," I pursued,"because Aunt Dorothy says He can doeverything. And it cannot be because He wouldnot, because Aunt Gretel says He hates to seeany one do wrong or be unhappy. But theremust be some reason; and if we only knew it,I think everything else would become quiteplain."

"I do not see the reason, Olive," said Roger,after a long pause. "I cannot see it in the least. Iremember hearing two or three people discuss itonce with Father and Aunt Dorothy; and I thinkthey all thought they explained it. But no onethought any one else did. And they usedexceedingly long and learned words, longer andmore learned the further they went on. But theycould not agree at all, and at last they becameangry, so that I never heard the end. But in twoor three years, you know, I am going to Oxford,and then I will try and find out the reason. Andwhen I have found it out, Olive, I will be sure totell you."

"But that is not at all the most perplexing thingto me, Olive," he began, after a little silence;"because, after all, if we or the angels were to bepersons and not things, I don't see how it could behelped that we might do wrong if we liked.The great puzzle to me is, why we do anything,or if we can help doing anything we do; that is,if we are really persons at all, and not a kind ofpuppets."

"Of course we are not puppets, Roger," said I."Of course we can help doing things if we like. Ido not think that is any puzzle at all. I couldhave helped biting Placidia's finger if I hadliked—that is, if I had tried. And that is what makes itwrong."

"But you did not like it," said Roger, "and soyou did not help it. And what was to make youlike to help it, if you did not?"

"If I had been good, I should not have likedto hurt Placidia, however provoking she was," Isaid.

"Being good, to be sure," said I, feeling myselfhelplessly drawn into the whirlpool.

"That is going round and round, and coming tonothing," said Roger. "But leaving alone aboutright and wrong, what is to make you do anything?"

"But what makes you choose?" said he. "Whatmade you choose, for instance, to come here thisafternoon?"

"Because you wished it, and because it wasa fine afternoon; and we always do when it is,"said I.

"Then you chose it because of something in youwhich makes you like to please me, and because thesun was shining. Neither of which you could help;therefore you did not really choose at all."

"Idid choose, Roger," said I. "I might havefelt cross, and chosen to disappoint you, if I hadliked."

"But you are not cross; you are good-tempered,on the whole, so you could not help liking to pleaseme."

"That is because, as Aunt Gretel says, yourtemper is like what our mother's was, quick butsweet," said he; "and that is a deeper puzzle still,because it goes further back than you and yourcharacter, to our mother's character, that is to say;and if to hers, no one can say how much further,probably as far as Eve."

"But sometimes," said I, "for instance, when youtalk like this, my temper is tempted to be cross evenwith you, Roger. But I choose to keep my temper,and it must be I myself that choose, and not mytemper or my mother's."

"That is because of the two motives, the onewhich inclines you to keep your temper is strongerthan the one which inclines you to lose it," said he."But there is always something before your choiceto make you choose, so that really you must choosewhat you do, and therefore you do not really chooseat all."

"But I do choose, Roger," said I. "I choose thisinstant to jump down from this tree—so—and gohome."

"That proves nothing," said he, following medown from the tree with provoking coolness; "youchose to jump down, because there is a wilfulfeeling in you which made you choose it, and that ispart of your character, and probably can be tracedback to Eve, and proves exactly what I say."

"I am not free to do right or wrong, or anything,Roger!" I said. "Then I might as well be a cat,or a tree, or a stone."

"I do not see any," he said; "at least not bythinking. But there seems to me no end to thepuzzles, if one begins to think."

He did not seem to mind it at all, but rather toenjoy it, as if it were a mere tossing of mental ballsand catching them.

But I, on the other hand, was in great bewildermentand heaviness, for I felt like being a ballmyself, tossed helplessly round and round, withoutseeing any beginning or end to it, and it made mevery unhappy.

We came back to the house at supper-time with avague sense of some judgment hanging over ourheads. Aunt Dorothy met us in the porch with aswitch in her hand.

"Naughty children," said she, "Placidia says sheheard you using profane language in the apple-tree,taking God's holy name in vain."

"I was not speaking so much of God, AuntDorothy," said I in confusion, "as of the devil."

"Worse again," said Aunt Dorothy, "that isswearing downright. It is as bad as the cavaliersat the Court. Hold out your hand, Roger; and,Olive, go to bed without supper."

Roger scorned any self-defence. He held out hishand, and received three sharp switches withoutflinching. Only at the end he said,—

"Now I shall tell my father how Placidia stolethe apples and get justice done to Olive."

"You will tell your father nothing, sir," saidAunt Dorothy. "I have sent Placidia to bedthree hours ago for tale-bearing, and given herthe chapter in the Proverbs to learn. And youwill sit down and learn the same, and both of yousay it to me to-morrow morning before breakfast."

This was what Aunt Dorothy considered even-handedjustice. Time, she said, was too preciousto spend in searching out the rights of children'squarrels, and human nature being depraved as it is,all accusations had probably some ground of truth,and all accusers some wrong motive. And in allquarrels there is always, said she, fault on bothsides. She therefore punished accused and accuseralike, without further investigation. I haveobserved something of the same plan pursued since bysome persons who aspire to the character of impartialhistorians. But it never struck me as quitefair in the historians or in Aunt Dorothy. However,I must say, in Aunt Dorothy's case, this modeof administering justice had a tendency to checkaccusations. It must have been an unusually strongdesire of vengeance, or sense of wrong, whichinduced us to draw up an indictment which was sureto be visited with equal severity on plaintiff anddefendant. And although our sense of justice wasnot satisfied, and Roger and I in consequenceformed ourselves into a permanent Committee ofGrievances, the peace of the household was perhaps onthe whole promoted by the system. The embitteringeffects were, moreover, softened in our case bythe presence of other counteracting elements.

I had not been long in bed according to thedecrees of Justice in the person of Aunt Dorothy, whenMercy, in the person of Aunt Gretel, came to bindup my wounds.

"Olive, my little one," said she, sitting down onthe side of my bed, "what hast thou been saying?Thou wouldst not surely say anything ungratefulagainst the dear Lord and Saviour?"

Whereupon I buried my face in the bed-clothes,and sobbed so that the bed shook under me.

"Poor little one! Thou must not break thyheart. The good Lord will forgive, Olive, willforgive all. Tell me what it is, darling, and don't beafraid."

"If thou canst not tell me, tell the dear Saviour.He is gentler than poor Aunt Gretel, and knowsthee better. Only do not be afraid of Him,nothing grieves Him like that, sweet heart;anything but that."

"Indeed, Aunt Gretel, I did not mean anythingwicked. But it is so hard to understand.There are so many things I cannot make out.And oh, if I should be on the wrong side of thetree after all! If I should be on the wrong side ofthe tree!"

"The tree with God at the beginning," said I,"and with heaven at one end and hell at the other,and no way to cross over if once you get wrong,and God never seeming to mind."

"A very wicked tree," said Aunt Gretel. "Inever heard of it. The only tree in the Bible isthe Tree of Life. And of that the Blessed Lordwill give freely to every one who comes—the fruitfor life and the leaves for healing. Never mind theother, sweet heart."

"If there were only a way across!" said I, "andif I could be sure God did care!"

"There is a way across, my lamb," said she."Only it is not a way. It is but a step. It is alook. It is a touch. For the way across is theblessed Saviour Himself. And He is always nearerthan I am now, if you could only see."

"Care! little Olive," said she. "Hast thouforgotten the manner and the cross? That comes oftrying to see back to the beginning.He was inthe beginning, sweet heart, but not thou or I! Heis the beginning every day and for ever to us.Look to Him. His face is shining on you now,watching you tenderly as if it were your mother's,my poor motherless lamb. Whatever else is dark,that is plain. And you never meant to grieve orquestion Him! You did not mean to say thedarkness was in Him, Olive! You never meant that.Put the darkness anywhere but there, sweetheart—anywhere but there. There is darkness enough,in good sooth. But in Him is no darkness at all." Andthen she murmured, half to herself, "It is verystrange, Dr. Luther made it all so plain, more thana hundred years ago. And it seems as if it all hadto be done over again."

I had. But it was sweet to kneel down withAunt Gretel again, with her arms and her warmdress folded around me, and say the words afterher, the Our Father, and the prayer for father andRoger and all.

But when I came to ask a blessing on CousinPlacidia, my lips seemed unable to frame the words.

"She is so very difficult to love, Aunt Gretel,"said I; "she often makes me do wrong. And Ibit her finger this morning."

"Poor little one," said she, "ah, yes! It isalways hardest to forgive those we have hurt."

"It will not help thee to think of that, poorlamb," said Aunt Gretel, "what thou hast to do isto forgive. Think of what will help thee to dothat."

"Dost thou wish anything bad to happen to thycousin?" said Aunt Gretel, after a pause. "If thoucouldst bring trouble on her by praying for it,wouldst thou do it?"

"Then wouldst thou ask thy father to send heraway, poor neglected orphan child that she was?"

"No, no, Aunt Gretel," I said, "not that. But Ishould like to see her punished by Aunt Dorothy."

"That would be a good deal for us all," said she;"perhaps even for thee a little more than going tobed one night without supper."

"Thou wishest thy cousin to be good, then?"said Aunt Gretel. "Then thou canst at least prayfor that."

"It would make the house like the Garden ofEden, I think," I said, "before the tempter came, ifPlacidia were only not so provoking."

"Would it?" said she, gravely. "Art thou thenalways so good? Then, perhaps, thou canst askthat thy cousin's trespasses may be forgiven, evenifthou canst not forgive her, and hastnone of thineown to be forgiven!"

"O, Aunt Gretel." said I, suddenly perceivingher meaning, "I see it all now! It is the bit of icein my own heart that made everything dark andcold to me. It is the bit of ice in my own heart!"

And then she prayed once more for Placidia theorphan, and for me, and Roger, "that God in Hisgreat pity would bless us and forgive us, and makeus good and loving, and like Himself and His dearSon who suffered for us and bore our sins."

And after that I did not so much care evenwhether Roger brought the answer he promisedfrom Oxford or not.

And it flashed on me for an instant, as if theanswer to Roger's other puzzle might come somehowfrom the same point; as if it answered everythingto the heart to think that light and not darkness,love and not necessity, are at the innermostheart of all. For love is at once perfect freedomand inevitable necessity.

But before I fell asleep, while Aunt Gretel wasstill sitting on the bedside with her knitting, Iheard her say to herself—

"Not so very strange—not so strange after all,although Dr. Luther did make it all clear assunshine more than a hundred years ago. It is thatbit of ice in the heart, that bit of ice that is alwaysfreezing afresh in the heart."

But Aunt Dorothy, on a night's consideration,thought the affair of the apple-tree too importantto be passed over, as most of our childish quarrelswere, without troubling my father about them.

Accordingly the next morning we were summonedinto my father's private room, where hereceived his rents as a landlord, and sentencedoffenders as a magistrate, and kept his law-books,and many other great hereditary folios on divinity,philosophy, and things in general. A very solemnproceeding for me that morning, my conscienceoppressed with a sense of having done some wrongintentionally, and I knew not how much morewithout intending it.

Gradually, Roger and I standing on the otherside of the table, with the law-books and themathematical instruments my father was so fond ofbetween us, he drew from us what had been thesubject of our conversation.

Then, to my surprise, as we stood awaiting oursentence, he called me gently to him, and, seatingme on his knee, pointed out a paper spread on ahuge folio volume, which lay open before him. Itwas a diagram of the sun and the planets, with thefour moons of Jupiter, the earth and the moon,complicated by circles and lines mysteriouslyintersecting each other.

"Olive," said he, "be so good as to explain thatto me. It is made by a gentleman who learned aboutit from the great astronomer Galileo, and is meantto explain how the earth and the sun are kept intheir places." I looked at the complication offigures and lines and magical-looking signs, and thenin his face to see what he could mean.

"And yet this is only a drawing of a little cornerof the world, Olive—the sun and the earth and afew of the planets in the nook of the world in whichwe live. The whole universe is a good deal harderto understand than this."

"Father," said I, ashamed and blushing, "indeedI never thought I could understand these things—atleast not yet; I only thought you might, orsome wise people somewhere."

"Olive," said he, in a low voice, tenderly andreverently, stroking my head while he spoke, "beforethe great mysteries you and Roger have fallenon, I can only wonder, and wait, and say like you,'Father, a little child like me!' And I do not thinkthe great Galileo himself could do much more."

"Exercise your wits as much as you can, myboy; but there are two kinds of roads I advise youfor the most part to eschew. One kind are theroads that lead to the edge of the great darknesswhich skirts our little patch of light on every side.The other are the roads that go in a circle, leadingyou round and round with much toil to the pointfrom which you started. I do not say, never travelon these—you cannot always help it. But for themost part exercise yourself on the roads which leadsomewhere. The exercise is as good, and the resultbetter." And he was about to send us away.

But Aunt Dorothy was not at all satisfied."That Signor Galileo was a very dangerousperson," she said. "He said the sun went round,and the earth stood still, which was contrary atonce to common sense, the five senses, and Scripture;and if chits like Roger and me were allowedto enter on such false philosophy at our age, whereshould we have wandered at hers?"

"Not much further, Sister Dorothy," said myFather, "if they reached the age of Methuselah.Not much further into the question, and not muchnearer the answer."

"I see no difficulty in the question at all," saidAunt Dorothy. "The Almighty does everythingbecause it is His will to do it. And we can donothing except He wills us to do it. Which answersOlive and Roger at once. All doubts are sins,and ought to be crushed at the beginning."

"How would you do this, Sister Dorothy?" askedmy Father; "a good many persons have tried itbefore and failed."

"How! The simplest thing in the world,"said Aunt Dorothy. "In the first place, setpeople to work, so that they have no time forsuch foolish questions, and genealogies, andcontentions."

"A wholesome plan, which seems to be verygenerally pursued with regard to the whole humanrace," said Father. "It is mercifully provided thatthose who have leisure for such questions are few.But what else would you do?"

"For the children there is the switch," said AuntDorothy. "They would be thankful enough for itwhen they grew wiser."

"So think the Pope and Archbishop Laud," repliedmy Father; "and so they set up the Inquisitionand the Star Chamber."

"I have no fault to find with the Inquisition andthe Star Chamber," said Aunt Dorothy, "if theywould only punish the right people."

"But sometimes we learn we have been mistakenourselves," said Father. "How can webe sure we are absolutely right about everything?"

"I am," said Aunt Dorothy, emphatically. "ThankHeaven I have not a doubt about anything. Heresyis worse than treason, for it is treason against God;and worse than murder, for it is the murder ofimmortal souls. The fault of the Pope and ArchbishopLaud is that they are heretics themselves, andpunish the wrong people."

This was a point often reached in discussionsbetween my Father and Aunt Dorothy, but thistime it was happily closed by the clatter of ahorse's hoofs on the pavement of the court beforethe house.

My father's face brightened, and he rose hastily,exclaiming, "A welcome guest, Sister Dorothy—theLord of the Fens—sot the table in the wainscotedparlour."

He left the room, and we children watched a tall,stalwart gentleman, well known to us, with ahealthy, sunburnt face, alight from his horse.

"The Lord of the Fens, indeed!" said AuntDorothy in a disappointed tone, as she looked out ofthe window. "Why, it is only Mr. Oliver Cromwellof Ely, with his coat as slovenly as usual, andhis hat without a hat-band. I am as much againstgewgaws as any one. If I had my way, not aslashed doublet, or ribboned hose, or feather, orlace, should be seen in the kingdom. But there isreason in all things. Gentlemen should look likegentlemen, and a hat without a hat-band is goingtoo far, in all conscience. The wainscoted parlour,in good sooth! Why, his boots are covered withmud, and I dare warrant it, he will never think ofrubbing them on the straw in the hall. And theywill get talking, no one knows how long, about thateverlasting draining of the Fens. I can't thinkwhy they won't let the Fens alone. They did verywell for our fathers as they were, and they werebetter men than we see now-a-days; and if theAlmighty made the Fens wet, I suppose he meantthem to be wet; and people had better take carehow they run against His designs. And they saythe king is against it, or against somebodyconcerned in it, so that there is no knowing what itmay lead to. All Scotland in a tumult, and thegodly languishing in prison, and our parson puttingon some new furbelow and setting up some newfandango every Sabbath; and a godly gentlemanlike Mr. Oliver Cromwell (for he is that, I don'tdeny) to have nothing better to do than to try andsqueeze a few acres more of dry land out of the Fens!"

"Mr. Hampden says Mr. Cromwell would be thegreatest man in England if things should come tothe worst, and there should be any disturbance withthe king."

At that moment my father called Roger, and tohis delight he was allowed to accompany him andour guest over the farm.

"Mr. Oliver Cromwell of Ely was at our house yesterday.Roger walked over the farm with him and my father.Their discourse was concerning twenty shillings which theking wants to oblige Mr. Hampden of Great Hampden tolend him, which Mr. Hampden will not, not because hecannot afford it, but because the king would then be ableto make every one lend him money whether they like it ornot, or whether they are able or not. They call it theship-money. Concerning this and also concerning somegood men, ministers or lecturers, whom Mr. Cromwellwishes to set to preach the Gospel to the people in placeswhere no one else preaches, so that they can understand,but whom Archbishop Laud has silenced with fines andmany threats, Aunt Dorothy thinks it a pity godly menlike Mr. Hampden and Mr. Cromwell should concernthemselves about such poor worldly things as shillings andpence. Regarding the lecturers, she says that they havemore reason. Only, she says, it is a wonder to her theywill begin with such small insignificant things. Let themset to work, root and branch (says she), against Poperyunder false names and in high places, and these lessermatters will take care of themselves. But father says,'poor worldly things' are just the things by which weare tried and proved whether we will be faithful to thehigh unworldly calling or not. And 'small insignificantthings' are the beginnings of everything that lives andendures, from a British oak to the kingdom of heaven."

CHAPTER II.

"This morning, before break of day, I went tobathe my face in the May dew by the LadyWell. There I met Lettice Davenant withher maidens. She was dressed in a kirtle ofgrass-green silk, with a blue taffetas petticoat, and hereyes were like wet violets, and her brown hair like wavytangles of soft glossy unspun silk, specked and woven withgold, and she looked like a sweet May flower, just liftingitself out of its green sheath into the sunshine, and all thecolours changing and blending into each other, as they doin the flowers. And she laid her soft, little hand in mine,and said her mother loved mine, and she wished I wouldlove her, and be her friend. And she kissed me with herdear, sweet, little mouth, like a rosebud—like a child's.And I held her close in my arms, with her silky hairfalling on my shoulder. She is just so much shorter than Iam. And her heart beat on mine. And I will love herall my life. No wonder Roger thinks her fair.

"Firstly, because I cannot help it. And secondly,because I am sure it is right—right—right to love; alwaysright to love—to love as much, as dearly, as long, as deepas we can. Always right to love, never right to despise,or keep aloof, or turn aside. Sometimes right to hate, atleast I think so; sometimes right to be angry, I am sureof that; but never right to despise, and always—alwaysright to love.

"For Roger and I have looked well all through theGospels to see. And the Pharisee despised, the Priest andthe Levite passed by, and the disciples said once or twice,send her away. But the Lord drew near, called them toHim, touched, took in His arms, loved, always loved.Loved when they were wandering—loved when they wouldnot come; loved even when they 'went away.'

"And Aunt Gretel thinks the same. Only I sometimeswish we had lived in the times she speaks of, told of incertain Family Chronicles of hers, a century old. Forthen it was the people with the wrong religion whodespised others, and were harsh and severe. And they wentinto convents, which must have been a great relief to therest of the family. And now it seems to be the peoplewith the right religion who do like the Pharisees. Andthey stay at home, which is more difficult to understand,and more unpleasant to bear."

A very vehement utterance, crossed through withrepentant lines in after times, but still quitelegible, and of interest to me for the vanished outerworld of life, and the tumultuous inward world ofrevolt it recalls.

For that May morning, on my way home throughthe wood, I met the village lads and lasses bringinghome the May; and when I reached the house, itwas late; the serving men and maidens had finishedtheir meal at the long table in the hall, and AuntDorothy sat at one end on the table, which crossedit at the top, and span; and Cousin Placidia satsilent at the other end and span, the whirr of theirspinning-wheels distinctly reproaching me in asteady hum of displeasure, until I was constrainedto reply to it and to Aunt Dorothy's silence.

"Aunt Dorothy, prithee, forgive me. I only wentto bathe my face in the May dew by the Lady Well.And there I met Lettice Davenant."

"I never reproached thee, child," said Aunt Dorothy."There is too much license in this house forthat. But this, I will say, the excuse is worse thanthe fault. How often have I told thee not to stainthy lips with the idolatrous title of that well? Andas to bathing thy face in the May dew, Olive, it isPopery—sheer Popery."

"Not Popery, sister Dorothy," said my Father,looking up from his sheet of news just brought fromLondon. "Not Popery; Paganism. The customdates back to the ancient Romans, probably to thefestival of the goddess Maia, mother of Mercury,but here antiquarians are divided."

"And well they may be," said Aunt Dorothy,"what but sects and divisions can be expected fromsuch tampering with vanities and idolatries? Formy part, it matters little to me whether the customdates to the modern or the ancient Romans, or tothe Hittites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, and theJebusites. Whoever painted the idol, I have littledoubt who made it. And of the two I like theunchristened idols best."

"Not quite, sister Dorothy, not always," remonstratedmy Father, "it is certainly a great mistaketo worship the Virgin Mary. But the Moloch towhom they burned little children was worse, muchworse."

"If he was, the less we hear about him the better,Brother," said Aunt Dorothy. "But as to the burningI see little difference. You can see the blacksites of Queen Mary's fires still. And LetticeDavenant has been up at the court of the new QueenMarie (as they call her);—an unlucky name forEngland. And little good she or hers are like todo to our Olive."

On which I turned wholly into a boiling caldronof indignation; and to what it might have led Iknow not, had not Aunt Gretel at that momentintervened, ruddy from the kitchen fire, and with theglow of a pleasant purpose in her kindly blue eyes.

"They are like to have the blithest May to-daythey have seen for many a year," said she. "OurMargery, the daughter of Tib the dairywoman, isto be queen. And a better maiden or a sweeterface there is not in all the country side. And Dickon,the gardener's son at the Hall, is her sweetheart,and the Lady Lucy Davenant has let them deckthe bower with posies from her own garden, andthey are coming from the Hall, the Lady Lucy andSir Walter, and Mistress Lettice and her fivebrothers, to see the jollity."

"Tell Tib's goodman to broach a barrel of thebest ale, sister Gretel," said my Father, "and wewill go and see."

This was said in the tone Aunt Dorothy neveranswered, and she made no remonstrance exceptthrough the whirr of her spinning-wheel, whichalways seemed to Roger and me to be a kind of"famulus," or a second-self to Aunt Dorothy (ofcourse of a white not a black kind), saying the thingshe meant but would not say, and in a thousandways spinning out and completing, not her threadonly, but her life and thought.

My Father soon rose and went to the farm. AuntDorothy span silent at one end of the table, andCousin Placidia at the other; while I sat too indignantto eat anything, and Aunt Gretel moved aboutin a helpless, conciliatory state between.

"The Bible does speak of being merry, sisterDorothy," said she at length, metaphorically puttingher foot into Aunt Dorothy's spiritual spinning, asshe was wont to do.

"No doubt it does," said Aunt Dorothy. "'Isany merry among you, let him sing psalms.'"

"I am sure I wish they would," said AuntGretel, "there is nothing I enjoy so much. And,"pursued she, waxing bold, "after all, sisterDorothy, the whole world does seem to sing and dancein the green May, the little birds hop and sing,(sing love-songs too, sister Dorothy), and the leavesdance and rustle, and the flowers don all the coloursof the rainbow."

"As to the flowers," said Aunt Dorothy, "theydid not choose their own raiment, so no blame tothem, poor perishing things. I hold they wereclothed in their scarlet and purple, like fools inmotley, for the very purpose of shaming us intobeing sober and grave in our attire. The birds,indeed, may hop and sing if they like it. Not that Ithink they have much cause, poor inconsideratecreatures, what with the birds'-nesting, and thepoaching, and Mr. Cromwell draining the fens.But they have no foresight, and they have notimmortal souls, and if they're to be in a pie to-morrowthey don't know it; and they are no worse for it theday after."

"But," said Aunt Gretel, "we have immortalsouls, and I think that ought to make us sing athousand-fold better than the birds."

"We have not only souls, we have sins," saidAunt Dorothy; "and there is enough in sin, I hold,to stop the sweetest music in the world when theburden is felt."

"But we have the Gospel and the Saviour," saidAunt Gretel, "glad tidings of great joy to allpeople."

"Tell them, then, to the people," said AuntDorothy; "get a godly minister to go and preachthem to the poor sinners in the village, and thatwill be better than setting up May-poles andbroaching beer barrels."

"I do tell them whenever I can, sister Dorothy,"said Aunt Gretel meekly, "as well as I can. Butthe best of us cannot always be listening to sermons."

"We might listen much longer than we do ifwe tried," said Aunt Dorothy, branching off fromthe subject. "In Scotland, I am told, the Sabbathservices last twelve hours."

Aunt Gretel sighed; whether in compassion forthe Scottish congregations, or in lamentation overher own shortcomings, she did not explain.

"But," she resumed, "it does seem that if thegood God meant that there should have been nomerry-making in the world he would have arrangedthat people should have come into the world full-grown."

"Probably it would have been better if it couldhave been so managed," said Aunt Dorothy; "butI suppose it could not. However that may be, thebest we can do now is to make people grow up assoon as they can, and not keep them babies withMay games, and junketings, and possetings."

"But," said Aunt Gretel timidly, "after all, sisterDorothy, the Bible does not give us any strictrules by which we can judge other people in suchthings."

"I confess," replied Aunt Dorothy, "that if therecould be a thing to be wished for in the Bible (withreverence I say it), it is just that there were a fewplain rules. St. Paul came very near it when hewas speaking of the weak brethren at the idol-feasts;but I confess I do think it would have beena help if he had gone a little further while he wasabout it. Then, people would not have been ableto pretend they did not know what he meant. Ido think it would have been a comfort if there couldhave been a book of Leviticus in the New Testament."

"But your Mr. John Milton," said Aunt Gretel,"in his new masque of Comus, which your brotherthinks beautiful, introduces music and dancing."

"Mr. Milton is a godly man," said Aunt Dorothy"but, poor gentleman, he is a poet; and poets cannot always be expected to keep straight, likereasonable people."

"But Dr. Martin Luther himself dearly lovedmusic," said Aunt Gretel, driven to her final courtof appeal, "and even sanctioned dancing, in aChristian-like way, without rioting and drunkenness."

"Dr. Luther might," rejoined Aunt Dorothy."Dr. Luther believed in consubstantiation, andrejected the Epistle of St. James. And, besides, bythis time he has been in heaven, it is to be hoped,for nearly a hundred years, and there can be nodoubt he knows better."

"Sister Dorothy," she said, "Dr. Luther doesnot need to be defended by me. But I sometimesthink if he came to England in these days he wouldthink some of you had gone some way towardspainting again that terrible picture of God, whichmade the little ones fly from Him instead of takingrefuge with Him, and which it took him so muchtoil to destroy."

And she fled to the kitchen, rosier than shecame, but with tears instead of smiles in hereyes.

"If people could enjoy themselves harmlessly,without rioting and drunkenness," said Aunt Dorothy,half yielding, "there might be less to be saidagainst it.

"Because, Aunt Dorothy," said Placidia solemnly,"I saw Dickon trying to kiss our Tib's daughter,Margery, behind the door; and she would not lethim. But she laughed and did not seem angry. Isthat rioting?"

"Dickon may kiss Margery as often as he likeswithout hurting you or any one, Placidia," saidAunt Dorothy, incautiously. "Margery is a goodhonest girl, and can take care of herself. And youhave no right to watch what any one does behinddoors. You, at least, shall not go to the May-poleto-day, but shall stay with me and learn thethirteenth of First Corinthians."

"I do not wish to go to any rioting or Maygames," said Placidia. "I like my spinning andmy book. I never did care for dancing and playingand fooling, Aunt Dorothy, I am thankful to say."

"Don't be a Pharisee, Placidia," said AuntDorothy, turning hotly on her unwelcome ally."Better play and dance like a flipperty-gibbet, thanwatch what other people do behind doors, and telltales."

And I left them to settle the controversy, whileI went to join Aunt Gretel, who was in my Father'schamber preparing for me such sober decorationsin honor of the festivities as our Puritan wardrobesadmitted of. It was a great day for me; chiefly forthe expectation of meeting the Lady Lucy and thesweet maiden Lettice.

I was starting full of glee when the sight of AuntDorothy, spinning silently in the hall as we passedthe door, with Placidia beside her, threw a littleshadow over my contentment. Aunt Dorothy socompletely represented to me the majesty of law,and at the bottom of our hearts both Roger and Iso trusted and honored her, that in spite even of myFather's sanction, something of misgiving troubledme at the sight of her grave face. With a suddenimpulse I ran back, and, standing before her, said—

"Aunt Dorothy, you are not angry? I shall notdance, only look, and soon be at home again, andall will go on the same as ever."

At that moment my father came back to seek me,and, catching Aunt Dorothy's last words, he saidkindly but gravely, "Do not let us trouble thechild's conscience with our scruples. It is a seriousdanger to force our scruples on others. Whenexperience of their own peculiar weaknesses andbesetments has led them to scruple at things forthemselves, it is another matter. But to add toGod's laws is almost as tremendous a mistake as tosubtract from them. Our additions, moreover, aresure to end in subtractions in some other direction.Indifferent things done with a guilty conscience leadto guilty things done with an indifferent conscience.In inventing imaginary sins you create real sinners."

"Well, brother, it is as you please," said AuntDorothy, "but I should have thought our newparson reading from that blasphemous 'Book of Sports'from the pulpit, commanding the people to dancearound the May-poles on the Sabbath afternoons,was enough to turn any serious person againstthem."

"Nay; that is exactly one of the strongest reasonswhy I go to-day," said my father. "I go to showthat it is not the May-poles we scruple at, but thecruel robbing of the poor by the desecration of theday given them by God for higher things."

Conscience had come in with her questionings,and her discernings and her dividings. I was notsure whether God was pleased with me or with anyof us. Even when I looked at the garlandedMay-pole, I thought of the old tree in Eden with itspleasant fruit, which I had embroidered with aserpent coiled round it, darting out his forked tongueat Eve. I wondered whether if my eyes wereopened I should see him there, writhing among thehawthorn garlands, or hissing envenomed wordsinto the ear of our Tib's Margery as she sat in herroyal bower of green boughs crowned with flowers,or gliding in and out among the dancers, as handin hand they moved singing around the May-pole,wreathing and unwreathing the long garland whichunited them, and making low reverences, as theypassed, to their blushing Queen. I wonderedwhether the whole thing had some mysteriousconnection with idolatry, and heaven itself were afterall watching us with grieved displeasures like AuntDorothy, and secretly preparing fiery serpents, or arain of fire and brimstone, or a thunder storm, orwhatever came instead of fiery serpents and fire andbrimstone in these days when there were no moremiracles.

These thoughts, however, all vanished when thefamily appeared from the Hall. The Lady Lucywas borne by two men in a sedan-chair which shehad brought from London, a thing I had never seenbefore. It so happened that I had never seen theLady Lucy until that day. The family had beenmuch about the court, and on the few occasions onwhich they had spent any time at the Hall, theLady Lucy's health had been too feeble to admit ofher attending at the parish church with the rest ofthe family. From the moment, therefore, that SirWalter handed her out of the chair and seated heron cushions prepared for her, I could not take myeyes from her, not even to look at Lettice. Soqueenly she appeared to me, such a perfection ofgrace and dignity and beauty. Her complexionwas fair like Lettice's, but very delicate and pale,like a shell; and her hair, still brown and abundant,was arranged in countless small ringlets around herface. On her neck and her forehead there was abrilliant sparkle and a glitter, which must, of course,have been from jewels; and her dress had a sheenand a gloss, and a delicate changing of gorgeouscolours on it which must have been that of velvetand brocade and rare laces. But in my eyes shesat wrapped in a kind of halo of unearthly glory.I no more thought of resolving it into the textureof any earthly looms than if she had been a lily ora star. All around her seemed to belong to her,like the moonbeams to the moon or the leaves to aflower. Not her dress only, but the green leaveswhich bent lovingly down to her, and the floweryturf which seemed to kiss her feet. If I thought ofany comparison, it was Aunt Gretel's fairy-tale ofthe princess with the three magic robes, enclosed inthe magic nut-shells, like the sun, like the moon, andlike the stars.

Even Sir Walter, burly, and sturdy, and noisy,and substantial as he was, seemed to me to acquirea kind of reflected glory by her speaking to him.And her seven sons girdled her like the planetsaround the sun, or like the seven electors AuntGretel told us about around the emperor. Butwhen at last her eyes rested on me, and she whisperedsomething to Sir Walter, and he came acrossand doffed his plumed hat to my father, and thenled me across to her, and she looked long in myface, and then up in my father's, and said, "Thelikeness is perfect," and then kissed me, and mademe sit down on the cushion beside her with herhand in mine, I thought her voice like an angel's,and her touch seemed to me to have somethinghallowing in it which made me feel safe like a littlebird under its mother's wing. The silent smile ofher soft eyes under her smooth, broad, unfurrowedbrow, as she turned every now and then and lookedat me, fell on my heart like a kiss. And I thoughtno more of Eve and the serpent, or Aunt Dorothy,or anything, until she rose to go. And then shekissed me again. But I scarcely seemed to carethat she should kiss me. Her presence was anembrace; her smile was a kiss; every tone of hervoice was a caress. A tender motherliness seemedto fold me all round as I sat by her. As she leftme she said softly,—

"Little Olive, you must come and see me. Yourmother and I loved each other." Then holding outher hand to my father, she added,—

He bowed, and they conversed some time longer;but the only thing I heard was that he promised Ishould go and see her at the Hall.

I think every one felt something of the soft charmthere was in her. For, quiet and retiring as shewas, when she left, a light and gladness seemed togo with her. Before long the dancing and singingstopped, the tables were set on the green, and thefeasting began, and we left and went home.

"Oh, Roger," said I, when we were alone thatevening, "there can be no one like her in theworld."

"Never saw her, Olive? How can I help seeingher every Sunday? She sits at the end of the pewjust opposite mine."

But when we came back to Netherby, full as myheart was of my new love, there was something inAunt Dorothy's manner that quite froze any utteranceof it, and brought me back to Eve and the apple.Yet she spoke kindly,—

"Thou lookest serious, Olive," said she. "Perhapsthou didst not find it such a paradise after all.Poor child, the world's a shallow cup, and thesooner we drain it the better. I think better ofthee than that thou wilt long be content with suchMay games and vanities. Come to thy supper."

But my honesty compelled me to speak. I didnot wish Aunt Dorothy to think better of me thanI deserved.

"It was not the May-pole," said I, my face burningat having to bring out my hidden treasure ofnew love; "not the May-pole, but Lady Lucy."

"Lady Lucy took a fancy to the child, SisterDorothy," said my father, "and asked her to theHall." And lowering his voice he added, "Shethought her like Magdalene."

I had scarcely ever heard him litter my mother'sChristian name before, and now it seemed to fallfrom his lips like a blessing.

"Into the very jaws of Babylon, brother? TheLady Lucy is one of the favourites, they say, of thePopish Queen."

"Very probably," said my father dryly, "I donot see how the Queen or any one else could helphonouring or favouring the Lady Lucy."

"They say she has a chapel at the Hall fitted upon the very pattern of Archbishop Laud, and priestsin coats of no one knows how many colours, andpainted glass, and incense. Thou wilt never let thepoor unsuspecting lamb go into the very lair of theBeast?"

"There are jewels in many a dust-heap, SisterDorothy, and the Lady Lucy is one," said my fathera little impatiently, for Aunt Dorothy had the facultyof arousing the latent wilfulness of the meekestof men. "Let us say no more about it. I havemade up my mind."

Had he known how deep was the spell on me, hemight have thought otherwise. For, ungratefulthat I was, having lost my heart to this fair strangelady, I sat chafing at Aunt Dorothy's injustice, in awide-spread inward revolt, which bid fair to extenditself to everything Aunt Dorothy believed orrequired. All her life-long care and affection, andpatient (or impatient) toiling and planning for meand mine, blotted out by what I deemed her blindinjustice to this object of my worship, who had butkissed me twice, and smiled on me, and saidhalf-a-dozen soft words, and had won all my childishheart!

And yet, looking back from these sober hours, Istill feel it was not altogether an infatuation. Suchtrue and tender motherliness as dwelt in Lady Lucyis the greatest power it seems to me that can investa woman.

All mothers certainly do not possess it. On some,on the contrary, the motherly love which passionatelyenfolds those within is too like a bristlingfortification of jealousy and exclusiveness to thosewithout. Or rather (that I dishonour not the mostsacred thing in our nature), I should say, themother's love which is from above is lowered andnarrowed into a passion by the selfishness which isnot from above. And some unmarried women possessit, some little maidens even who from infancydraw the little ones to them by a soft irresistibleattraction, and seem to fold them under softdove-like plumage. Without something of it women arenot women, but only weaker, and shriller, andsmaller men. But where, as in Lady Lucy, thewhole being is steeped in it, it seems to me thesweetest, strongest, most irresistible power on earth,to control, and bless, and purify, and raise, and thetruest incarnation (I cannot say anything so cold asimage), the truest embodying and ensouling of whatis divine.

But that night it so chanced that I, who hadfallen asleep lapped in sweet memories of Lady Lucyand in the protection of Aunt Gretel's presence,awakened by the long roll of a thunder-pealwhich seemed as if it never would end.

For some time I tried to hide myself from theflash and the terrific sound under the bed-clothes.But it would not do. At length I sprang speechlessfrom my little bed to Aunt Gretel's. She took mein close to her. And there, with my head on hershoulder, speech came back to me, and I said, in afrightened whisper (for it seemed to me likespeaking in church),—

"I do not know, Olive," said she quietly. "Moreawful, I think, yet plainer, for we shall allunderstand it, even those in the graves; and it will callus home."

"It is God's voice, is it not? Does not the Biblesay so? And it does sound like an angry voice,"I whispered, for the windows were rattling and thehouse was quivering with the repeated peals, as ifin the grasp of a terrible giant.

"There is much indeed to make the good Godangry, my lamb, much more than May-poles."

"Yes," said I, "there were the three gentlemenin the pillory! That must have been worsecertainly. But do you think God can be angry withme, Aunt Gretel?"

"God is never angry with any one for loving,"said Aunt Gretel, "only for not loving. But thereis a better voice of God than the thunder, Olive,"added she. "A voice that does not roar but speaks,sweet heart. Hast thou never heard that?"

"'It is I, be not afraid,'" she said, in a low, cleartone, contrasting with my awe-stricken whisper."Whenever thou dost not understand the voice thatthunders, sweet heart, go back to the voice thatspeaks, and that will tell thee what the voice thatthunders means."

"Aunt Gretel," said I, after a little silence, "itseemed to me as if Lady Lucy were like somewords of our Saviour's. As if everything in herwere saying in a soft dove's voice, 'Suffer the littlechildren to come unto Me.' Was it wrong to thinkso? It seemed as if I were sitting beside myMother, and then I thought of those very words.Was it wrong?"

"Not wrong, my poor motherless lamb," saidshe, "no, surely not wrong. Remember, Olive,from Paradise downwards the worst heresy has beenslander of the love of God; distrust of His love,and disbelief of the awful warnings His love givesagainst sin. Whenever we feel anything verytender in any human love, we should feel as if theblessed God were stretching out His arms to usthrough it, and saying, 'That is a little like theway I love thee. But only a little, only a little.'"

And the thunder rolled on, and the lightning thatnight cleft the great elm by the gate, so that in themorning it stood a scorched and blackened trunk.

And Aunt Dorothy said what an awful warningit was. But to me, if it was an "awful warning,"it stood also like a parable of mercy. I could notexactly have explained why; but I thought I couldread the meaning of the Voice that thundered bythe Voice that spoke.

And I pleaded hard with my father that the oldscathed tree might not be felled. For to me itsgreat bare blackened branches seemed to shelter thehouse like that accursed tree which had spread itsbare arms one Good Friday night outside Jerusalem,and had pleaded not for vengeance, but for pityand for pardon.

I think the resentment of injustice is one of thefirst-born and strongest passions in an ingenuousheart. And to this, I believe, is often due thefalling off of children from the party of their parents,They hear hard things said of opponents; on closeracquaintance they find these to be exaggerations,or, at least, suppressions; the general gloom of apicture being even more produced by effacing lightsthan by deepening shadows. The discovery throwsa doubt over the whole range of inherited beliefs,and it is well if in the heat of youth the revulsionis not far greater than the wrong; if in theirindignation at discovering that the heretic is not anembodied heresy, but merely a human creature believingsomething wrong, they do not glorify him intoa martyr and a model.

For Roger and me it was the greatest blessingthat our father was just and candid to the extentof seeing (often to his own great distress andperplexity) even more clearly the defects of his ownparty which he might correct, than of the other side,which he could not; and that Aunt Gretel was aptto see all opinions and characters melted into a hazeof indiscriminate sunshine by the light of her ownloving heart.

Our indignation, therefore, during the period ofour lives which followed on this May-day wasalmost entirely directed against Aunt Dorothy.

My idol remained for some time precisely at thedue idolatrous distance, enshrined in general behinda screen of sweet mystery, with occasional flashesof beatific vision; the intervals filled up withrumours of the music, and breaths of the incense ofthe inner sanctuary, enhanced by what I deemed theunjust murmurs of the profane outside.

My father fulfilled his promise of taking me to theHall. On our way to Lady Lucy's drawing-chamberI caught a glimpse through a half-open doorinto her private chapel, which left on my memory ahaze and a fragrance of coloured light falling on themarble pavements through windows like rubies andsapphires, of golden chalices and candelabras, ofaromatic perfumes, with a rise and fall of sweetchords of sacred music, all blended together into akind of sacred spell, like the church bells on Sundayacross the Mere. The Lady Lucy herself wasembroidering a silken church vestment with gold andcrimson; skeins of glossy silk of brilliant colourslay around her, which thenceforth invested thedescriptions of the broidered work of the tabernaclefor me with a new interest. She received my fatherwith a courtly grace, and me with her own motherlysweetness. She made me sit on a tabouret at herfeet, while she conversed with my father, and gaveme a French ivory puzzle to unravel. But I could donothing but drink in the soft modulations of hervoice without heeding what she said, except thatthe discourse seemed embroidered with the namesof the King and the Queen, and the Princes andPrincesses, which seemed as fit for her lips as herrich dress was for her person. She seemed to speakwith a gentle raillery, reminding him of old times,and asking why he deserted the court. But hiswords and tones were very grave. Then, as hespoke of leaving, she unlocked a little sandal-woodcabinet, and took out a locket containing a curl offair hair, and she said softly, "This was Magdalene's!"and held it beside mine. And then, as shecarefully laid it aside again, the conversation for afew moments rose to higher things, and a Namehigher than those of kings and queens was in it. Andshe said reverently, "In whatever else we differ, thatgood part, I trust, may be mine and yours! as weknow so well it was hers." And my father seemedmoved, took leave, and said nothing more until wehad passed through the outer gate, when in theavenue Lettice met us, cantering on a white palfrey,in a riding coat laced with red, blue and yellow;and springing off, left her horse to go whither itwould, as she ran to welcome me, saying a thousandpretty, kindly things, while I, in a shy ecstasy,could only stand and hold her hand, and feel as ifI had been transported, entirely unprepared, straightinto the middle of a fairy tale.

After that for some weeks there was a streamof courtly company at the Hall, and Roger and Ionly saw Lettice and occasionally the Lady Lucy atchurch, or met them now and then in our rides andrambles by the Mere or through the woods. Butwhenever we did meet there was always the sameeager cordial greeting from Lettice, and the sameaffectionate manner in her mother. And from timeto time we heard, through Tib's sweetheart Dickon,of the gracious little kindnesses of both mother anddaughter, of their thoughtful care for tenant andservant, of the honour in which they were held byprince and peasant. And so on me and on Rogerthe spell worked on.

The Draytons were of as old standing in the parishas the Davenants. Indeed, if tradition and ourfamily tree spoke true, many a broad acre aroundNetherby had been in the possession of our ancestors,maternal or paternal, when the forefathers ofthe Davenants had been holding insignificant fiefsunder Norman dukes, or cruising on very doubtfulerrands about the northern seas. Our pedigreedated back to Saxon times; the porch of the oldesttransept of the church had, to Aunt Dorothy'smingled pride and horror, an inscription on itrequesting prayers for the soul of one of ourprogenitors; and the oldest tomb in the church was ours.But while our family had remained stationary inplace as well as in rank, the Davenants had climbedfar above us. Our old Manor House had receivedno additions since the reign of Elizabeth, when thethird gable had been built with the large embayedwindow, and the three terraces sloping to thefish-pond and the orchards, while on the other side ofthe court extended, as of old, the cattle-sheds andstables. Meantime, the old Hall of the Davenantshad been degraded into farm-buildings, whilst a newmansion, with sumptuous banqueting halls anddainty ladies' withdrawing-chamber like a palace,had gradually sprung up around the remains of thesuppressed Priory, which had been granted to thefamily; the ancient Priory Church serving as LadyLucy's private chapel, the monks' refectory as thefamily dining-hall, whilst all signs of farm life hadvanished out of sight, and scent, and hearing.

During the same period, the new transept of ourparish church, which had been the Davenants'family chapel, had become enriched with statelymonuments, where the effigies of knight and dame restedunder decorated canopies. The titles and armorialbearings of many a noble family were mingled withtheirs on monumental brass and stained window;whilst the plain massive architecture of our hereditaryportion of the church was not more contrastedwith the rich and delicate carving of theirs thanwere we and our servingmen and maidens, in ourplain, sad-colored stuffs, unplumed, unadorned hats,caps or coifs, and white linen kerchiefs, with thebrocades, satins, and velvets, ostrich feathers andjewels, ribboned hosen and buckled shoes of theHall.

The contrast had gone deeper than mere externals,as external contrasts mostly do, in this symbolicalworld. In the Civil Wars, when no politicalprinciple was involved, it had chanced that theDraytons and the Davenants had seldom been onthe same side. But at and after the Reformationthe difference manifested itself plainly and steadily.

The Davenants had recognized Henry VIII.'ssupremacy to the extent of receiving from him agrant of the lands belonging to the neighbouringabbey. But it had probably cost them little changeof belief to return zealously to the old religion,under the rule of Queen Mary; whereas the Draytons,adhering with Saxon immobility to the Papalauthority when Henry VIII. discarded it, had slowlycome round to the conviction of the truth of thereformed religion by the time it became dangerous;and we hold it one of our chief family distinctionsthat we have a name closely connected with usenrolled among the noble army in "Fox's Book ofMartyrs." Indeed, throughout their history, ourfamily had an unprosperous propensity to thedangerous side. The religious convictions, so painfullyadopted and so dearly proved, had throughout thereign of Elizabeth given our ancestors a leaning tothe Puritan side; deep religious conviction bindingthem from generation to generation to the noblestspirits of their times, whilst a certain almostperverse honesty and inflexibility of temper naturallydrove them to resist any kind of pressure from without,and a taste for what is solid and simple ratherthan for what is elegant and gorgeous, whether inlife or in ritual, inclined them to the simplest formsof ecclesiastical ceremonial.

It was this strong hereditary Protestantism whichhad led my Father to join the religious wars inGermany. He held King Gustavus Adolphus, theSwede, to be the noblest man and the greatest generalof ancient or modern times. And he held thatthe fearful conflict by which that great king turnedthe tide against the Popish arms was little less thana conflict between truth and falsehood, barbarismand civilization, light and darkness. It was enoughto make any one believe in the necessity of hell, hesaid, to have seen, as he had, the city of Magdeburg,ten days after Tilly's soldiers had sacked it,when scarce three thousand corpse-like survivorscrept around the blackened ruins where lay buriedthe mangled remains of their fourteen thousandhappier dead. To see that, said my Father, wouldmake any one understand what is meant by thewrath of the Lamb; and that there are things whichcan make a gospel of vengeance as precious to justmen as a gospel of mercy. And some foretaste ofthat merciful vengeance, he said, had been givenalready. For after Magdeburg it was said Tillynever won a battle. My Father fought with theSwedish army till the death of the king, on the sixthof November, 1632; and that day of his victory anddeath at Lützen, was always kept in our householdas a day of family mourning.

Had Elizabeth been on the throne, my Fatherused to say, and Cecil at the helm of state, it wouldnot have been the little northern kingdom of Swedenwhich should have stemmed the torrent of Popishand Imperial tyranny, while England stood bywringing helpless womanish hands, beholding herbrethren in the faith tortured and slaughtered, herown king's daughter exiled and dethroned, and, atthe same time, her brave soldiers and sailors trifledto inglorious death by thousands at the bidding ofa musked and curled court favourite at Rhé andRochelle.

It was in Germany that my Father met my mother.She was a Saxon from Luther's own town,Wittemberg. Her name was Reichenbach, and herfamily retained affectionate personal memories ofthe great Reformer, as well as an enthusiasticdevotion to his doctrines. She and Aunt Gretel(Magdalene and Margarethe) were orphan daughters ofan officer in the Protestant armies. And I oftencount it among my mercies that our family historylinked us with more forms of our religion than one,and extended our horizon beyond the sects andparties of England. Our mother died two years aftermy father's return to England, leaving him us twochildren, and a memory of a love as devoted, and apiety as simple, as ever lit up a home by keeping itopen to heaven.

It was during these years she made the acquaintancewith Lady Lucy. They had been very closelyattached, although political differences, and the longabsences of the Davenants at Court, had preventedmuch intercourse between the families since herdeath.

Roger recollected her face and voice and herforeign accent, and one or two things she said tohim. I remember nothing of her but a kind ofbrooding warmth and care, tender caressing tones,and being watched by eyes with a look in themunlike any other, and then a day of weeping andsilence and black dresses and sad faces, and awandering about with a sense of something lost. Lostfor ever out of my life. As much as by anypossibility could be, Aunt Gretel made up thetenderness, and Aunt Dorothy the discipline; and myfather did all he could to supply her place by afatherly care softened into an uncommon passion byhis sorrow, and deepened into the most sacredprinciple by his desire to remedy our loss. Yet, inlooking back, I feel more and more we did indeedinevitably lose much. All these balancing andcompensating cares and affections and restraintsfrom every side yet missed something of the tenderconstraints and the heart-quickening warmth theywould have had all living, blended, and consecratedin the one mother's heart. Yet to Roger, perhaps,the loss was at various points in his life evengreater than to me.

If she had lived, perchance the lessons we had tolearn after that May Day would have been learnedwith less of blundering and heat. Yet how can Itell? It seems to me the true painter keeps hispictures in harmony not by mixing the colours onthe palette, but by blending them on the canvass,not by painting in leaden monotonous grays, but byinterweaving and contrasting countless tints of pureand varied colour. And in nature, in history, inlife, it seems to me the Creator does the same.

Yes, God forbid that in lamenting what we lostI should blaspheme the highest love—the love which,as Aunt Gretel says, takes every image of humanaffection, and fills and overfills it, and casts it awayas too shallow; in its unutterable intensity puttingas it were a tender paradox of slander on even amother's love for her babes, and saying, "They mayforget, yet will not I."

For that love, we believe, gave and took away,and has led us through fasting and feasting,dangers and droughts, Marahs and Elims, chasteningsand cherishings, ever since.

CHAPTER III.

At length the time arrived when my darkages of mystery and adoration were toto close. The pestilence so constantlyhovering over the wretched wastes ofdevastated Germany had been brought to Netherbyby a cousin of my mother's, who had come on avisit to us. He fell sick the day after his arrival,and died on the third day. That evening Tib, thedairywoman, sickened, and before the next morning,Margery, her daughter. A panic seized thehousehold. My father accepted Lady Lucy'sgenerous offer, to take charge of Roger and me, wehappening to have been from the first secluded fromall contact with the sick. Aunt Dorothy made afaint remonstrance. There were, said she, contagionsworse than any plague. If her brother wouldanswer for it, to his conscience, it was well. She,at least, would wash her hands of the whole thing.But my father had no scruples. "He only hoped,"he said, "that Lady Lucy might touch us with theinfection of her gracious kindliness; Olive wouldbe only with her, and as to Roger and the rest ofthe household, if he was ever to be a true Protestant,the time must come when he must learn, ifnecessary, to protest."

So much to Aunt Dorothy. To Roger himself,he said, in a low voice, as we were riding off, withhis hand on the horse's mane,—

Aunt Gretel watched and waved her hand to usfrom the infected chamber window where she satnursing Margery; and when I opened my bundle ofclothes that evening, I found in the corner a littlebook containing my mother's favorite psalms copiedin English for us, the 46th (Dr. Luther's own psalm),the 23d, and the 139th.

To be disenchanted. Not to be repelled, butcertainly to be disenchanted. Not by any subtlespell of counter-magic, or rude shock of bitterdiscovery, but by the slow changing of the world ofmisty twilight splendours, of dreams and visions,guesses and rumours, into a world of daylight, ofsight and touch.

My first disenchantment was the Lady Lucy'sartificial curls. She allowed me to remain with herwhile her gentlewoman disrobed her that evening.I shall never forget the dismay with which I beheldone dainty ringlet after another, of the kind called"heart-breakers," disentangled from among herhair—itself still brown and abundant—and laid onthe dressing-table. The perfumes, essences, powders,ointments, salves, balsams, crystal phials, andporcelain cups, among which these "heart-breakers"were laid, (mysterious and strange as theywere to me who knew of no cosmetics but coldwater and fresh air,) seemed to me only so manyappropriate decorations of the shrine of my idol.But the hair was false, and perplexed me sorely,Puritan child that I was, brought up with no habitsof subtle discernment between a deception anda lie.

The next morning brought me yet greater perplexity,I slept in a light closet in a turret off theLady Lucy's chamber. The Lady Lucy's owngentle woman came in to dress me, but before sheappeared I was already arrayed, and was kneeling atthe window-seat of my little arched window, readingmy mother's psalms.

I thought she came to call me to prayers, withwhich we always began the day at home; my fatherreading a psalm at daybreak and offering a shortsolemn prayer in the Hall, where all the men andmaidens were gathered, after which we sat down atone table to breakfast as the family had done sincethe days of Queen Elizabeth. But when I askedher if she came for this, she smiled, and said it wasnot a saint's day, so that it was not likely the wholehousehold would assemble, though no doubt myLady and Mistress Lettice would attend servicewith the chaplain in the chapel. But she said Imight attend Lady Lucy in her chamber before sherose, I gladly accepted, and Lady Lucy invitedme to partake of a new kind of confection calledchocolate, brought from the Indies by the Spaniards,which finding I could not relish, she sent for a cupof new milk and a manchet of fine milk-bread onwhich I breakfasted. Then she began her dressing;and then ensued my second stage of disenchantment.Out of the many crystal and porcelain vases on thetable, her gentlewoman took powders and paints,and to my unutterable amazement actually beganto tint with rose-colour Lady Lucy's checks, and tolay a delicate ivory-white on her brow. She madeno mystery of it; but I suppose she saw the horrorin my eyes, for she laughed and said,—

"You are watching me little Olive, with greateyes, as if I were Red Riding Hood's wolf-grand-mother.What is the matter?"

I could not answer, but I felt myself flushcrimson, and I remember that the only word thatseemed as if it could come to my lips, was "Jezebel." Iquite hated myself for the thought; the Lady Lucywas so tender and good! Yet all the day, throughthe service in the chapel, and my plays with Lettice,and my quiet sitting on my favorite footstool atLady Lucy's feet, those terrible words haunted melike a bad dream: "and she painted her face andtired her head and looked out at a window." Athousand times I drove them away. I repeated tomyself how she loved my mother, how my fatherhonored her, how gracious and tender she was tome and to all. Still the words came back, with thevisions of the false curls, and the paint, and thepowder. And I could have cried with vexationthat I had ever seen these. For I felt sure LadyLucy was inwardly as sweet and true as I hadbelieved, and that these were only little courtcustoms quite foreign to her nature, to which she as agreat lady had to submit, but which no more madeher heart bad than the washed hands and plattersmade the Pharisees good. Yet the serene and perfectimage was broken, and do what I would I couldnot restore it.

At the ringing of the great tower bell for dinner,summoning the household and inviting all withinhearing to share the hospitality of the Hall, acavalcade swept up the avenue, consisting of the familyof a neighbouring country gentleman. Lady Lucywho was seated at her embroidery frame in thedrawing-chamber, was evidently not pleased at thisannouncement. "They always stay till dark," shesaid, "and question me till I am wearied to death,about what the queen wears, what the princesseseat, or how the king talks, as if their majestieswere some strange foreign beasts, and I some Moorishshowman hired to exhibit them. Lettice, mysweet, take them into the garden after dinner, or Ishall not recover it."

Yet when the ladies entered she received themwith a manner as gracious as if they had beenanxiously expected friends. I reasoned with myselfthat this graciousness was an inalienable quality ofhers, as little voluntary or conscious as the softtones of her voice; or that probably she repentedof having spoken hastily of her visitors andcompensated for it by being more than ordinarily kind.But when it proved that they had to leave early,and she lamented over the shortness of the visit,and yet immediately after their departure threwherself languidly on a couch, and sighed, "What adeliverance!" I involuntarily shrank from her tothe farthest corner of the room, and watching thedeparting strangers, wished myself departing withthem.

I stood there long, until she came gently to meand laid her hand kindly on my head. I looked upat her, and longed to look straight into her heart.

"Tears on the long lashes!" said she, caressingly."What is the matter, little one?"

I threw my arms around her and sobbed, "Youarereally glad to have me, Lady Lucy; are you not?You would not like me to go?"

"You take things too much to heart, Olive, likeyour poor mother," she said at last, very gently."Those ladies are nothing to me; and your motherwas dear to me, Olive, and so are you."

But in the evening when I was in bed she cameherself into my little chamber, and sat by mybedside, like Aunt Gretel, and played with my longhair in her sweet way; and then before she left,said tenderly,—

"My poor little Olive, you must not doubt yourmother's old friend. I am not all, or half I wouldbe, but I could not bear to be distrusted by you.But you have lived too much shut up in a world ofyour own. You wear your heart too near thesurface. You bring heart and conscience into thingswhich only need courtesy and tactics. You wasteyour gold where beads and copper are as valuable.I must be courteous to my enemies, little one, andgracious to people who weary me to death; but toyou I give a bit of my heart, and that is quite adifferent thing."

And she left me reassured of her affection, butnot a little perplexed by this double code ofmorals. That one region of life should be governedby the rules of right and wrong, and another bythose of politeness, was altogether a strange thingto me.

Meantime Lettice and I were rapidly advancingfrom the outer court of courtesies into the inner oneof childish friendship, spiced with occasional sharpdebates, and very undisguised honesties towardseach other; as Lettice and her brothers initiatedme and Roger into the various plays and games inwhich they were so much superior to us, and webecame eager on both sides for victory. A very newworld this play-world was to us, who had knownscarcely any toys but such as we made for ourselves,and no amusements but such as we had planned forourselves.

Very charming it was to us at first, the billiard-table,the tennis-court, or pall-mall; and great delightRoger took in learning to vault and throw thedart on horseback, to wheel and curvet, or pick upa lady's glove at full speed, and in the variouscourtly exercises and feats, Spanish, French, orArabian, which the young Davenants had learnedfrom their riding-master. Naturally agile, he hadbeen trained to thorough command of his horse, byfollowing my Father through flood and fen, while hiseye had learned quickness and accuracy from huntingthe wild fowl, and tracking hares and foxesthrough the wild country around us, and theseaccomplishments came easily enough to him. Yetwith all these ingenious arrangements for passingthe time, it seemed to hang more heavily on handat the Hall than at Netherby; it came, indeed, toRoger and me as something completely new thatany arrangements should be needed to make thetime pass quickly. What with spinning, andsewing, and my helping my Aunts, and his learningGreek, and Latin, and Italian of my Father, andhelping him about the farm, our holiday hours hadalways seemed too brief for half the things we hadto do in them. Every morning found an eagerwelcome from us, and every evening a reluctantfarewell; and it was not until we spent those daysat the Hall that the question, "What are we to donext?" ever occurred to us, not in hesitation whichto select of the countless things we had to do in ourprecious spare hours, but as an appeal for some newexcitement.

Moreover, while in outward accomplishments andgraces we felt our inferiority, in many things wecould not but feel that our education had been farmore extensive than that of the Davenants.

Allusions to Greek and Roman history, and tonew discoveries in art and science, and even tostories of modern European wars, which were asnatural to us as household words, were plainly anunknown tongue to them. Even on the lute andthe harpsichord, Lattice's instructions had fallenshort of those my father had procured for me,although her sweet clear voice, and her gracefulway of doing everything, made all she did seemdone better than any one else could have done it.

The brothers, for the most part, laughed off theirdeficiencies, and often made them seem for themoment a kind of gentlemanlike distinction, banteringRoger as if learning were but a little better kind ofservile labour, beneath the attention of any butthose who had to earn their bread. All that kindof thing, they said, was going out of the mode.The late King James had tired the court out withovermuch pedantry and learning; the present kingindeed was a grave and accomplished gentleman,but merrier days would come in with the Frenchqueen's court and the young princes, when the "gayscience" would be the only one much worthcultivating by men of condition. Meantime the elderbrothers paid me many choice and graceful complimentson my hands and my hair, my eyes and myeye-lashes, my learning and my accomplishments,jesting now and then in a courtly way on my soberattire; and, child that I was, sent me looking withmuch interest and wonder at myself in the longglass in Lady Lucy's drawing-chamber, to see ifwhat they said was true. I remember, onenoon, after a long survey of myself, I concludedthat much of it was, and thanked God that eveningfor having made me pleasant to look at. A fewyears later, the danger would have been different.

But Lettice was of a different nature from all herbrothers except one. Generously alive to whateverwas to be loved or admired in others, and ready todepreciate herself, she wanted Roger and me toteach her all we knew. She made him hunt out thebooks which would instruct her in Sir Walter'sneglected library. She sat patiently three sunnymornings trying to learn from Roger the Italiangrammar, which she had pleaded hard he should teachher, she made him read the poetry to her, and saidit was sweeter than her mother's lute. But on thefourth morning her patience was exhausted;—shedeclared it was a wicked prodigality to waste thesunny hours in-doors, and danced us away to thewoods; and all Roger's remonstrances could notbring her back to such unwonted work. Indeedthe more he remonstrated, the more idle and indifferentshe chose to be, insisting instead on showinghim some new French dance or singing him somesnatch of French song she had learned from theQueen's ladies, until he gave up in despair; when shedeclared that but for his want of patience she hadbeen fairly on the way to become a feminine Solomon.

It was Monday when our visit commenced, sothat we were no longer strangers in the house bythe following Sunday. But we were not preparedfor the contrast between the Sundays at DavenantHall with those at Netherby. At our own home,grave as the day was, there was always a quietfestival air about it. The hall was fresh swept, andstrewn with clean sand. My Father and my Aunts,the maids and men, had on their holiday dresses.That morning at prayers we always had a psalm,and the mere thrill of my voice against my Father'srich deep tones was a pleasure to me. Then afterbreakfast Roger and I had a walk in the fields withhim, and he made us hear, and see a hundred thingsin the ways of birds and beasts and insects that weshould never have known without him. One dayit was the little brown and white harvest-mouse,which, by cautiously approaching it, we saw climbingby the help of its tail and claws to its littleround nest woven of grass suspended from a corn-stalk.Another day it was a squirrel, with its summerhouse hung to the branch of a tree with itsnursery of little squirrels; and its warm winterhouse, lined with hay, in the fork of an old trunk;or a colony of ants roofing their dwellings in thewood with dry leaves and twigs. Or he would turnit into a parable and show us how every creaturehas its enemies, and must live on the defensive ornot live at all. Or he would watch with us thebutterfly struggling from the chrysalis, or thedragon-fly soaring from its first life in the reedy creeksof the Mere to the new life of freedom in thesunshine. Or he would point out to us how thefield-spider had anticipated military science; how shethrew up her bulwarks and strengthened everyweak point by her fairy buttresses, and kept up thecommunication between the citadel and the remotestoutwork. Or he would teach us to distinguish thevarious songs of the birds, the throstles, thechaffinches, the blackbirds, or the nightingales. God,he said, had filled the woods with throngs of sacredcarollers, and melodious troubadours, and merryminstrels; some with one sweet monotonouscadence, one bell-like note, one happy little "peep"or chirp, and no more, and others overflowing witha passion of intricate and endlessly varied song;and it was a churlish return for such a concert notto give heed enough to learn one song from another.Or, together, we would watch the rooks in the greatelm grove behind the house, how strict their laws ofproperty were, the old birds claiming the samenest every year, and the young ones having toconstruct new ones. Or he would tell us of thedifferent forms of government among the variouscreatures; how the bees had an hereditary monarchy,yet owned no aristocracy but that of labour, killingtheir drones before winter, that if any would notwork neither should he eat; and how the rooks heldparliaments. Everywhere he made us see, wonderfullyblended and balanced, fixed order, with freespontaneous action; freaks of sportive merriment,free as the wildest play of childhood, with a fixednessof law more exact than the nicest calculationsof the mathematicians; "service which is perfectfreedom;" delicate beauty with homely utility;lavish abundance with provident care. And everywherehe made us feel that the spring of all thisorder, the source of all this fullness, the smilethrough all this humour and play of nature, the soulof all this law, was none other than God. So thatoften after these morning walks with him we fellinto an awed silence, feeling the warm daylightsolemn as a starry midnight, with the GreatPresence; and entered the church-porch almost withthe feeling that we were rather stepping out ofthe Temple than into it; that, sacred as was theplace of worship and of the dead, it was not moresacred or awful than the world of life we left toenter it.

The other golden hour of our golden day (forSunday was ever that to us), was when in theevening he read the Bible with Roger and me in hisown room. I cannot remember much that he usedto say about it. I only remember how he made usreverence and love it; its fragments of biographywhich make you know the people better than volumesof narrative; its characters that are never mereincarnations of principles, but men and women; itsletters that are never mere sermons concentrated onan individual; its sermons that are never meredissertations peculiarly applicable to no one time orplace, but speeches intensely directed to the needs ofone audience, and the circumstances of one place, andtherefore containing guiding wisdom for all; itsprayers that are never sermons from a pulpit, butbrief cries of entreaty from the dust or flamingtorrents of adoration piercing beyond the stars, orquiet asking of little children for daily bread; itsconfessions that are as great drops of blood, wrungslowly from the agony of the heart; its hymns thatdart upward singing and soaring in a wild passionof praise and joy.

I can recall little of what my father said to us inthose evening hours, but I remember that they lefton our minds the same kind of joyous sense ofhaving found something inexhaustible which came fromour morning walks. They made us feel that incoming to the Bible, as to nature, we come not to acistern or a stream or a ponded store, though it mightbe abundant enough for a nation; but to a Fountain,which, though it might seem at times but agentle bubbling up of waters just enough for thethirsty lips which pressed it, was, nevertheless,living, inexhaustible, eternal, because it welled upfrom the fullness of God.

The usual name for the Sabbath in our home wasthe Lord's Day, because of our Lord's Resurrection.On other days my Father read to us, and made usread and love other books—books of history andscience as well as of religion, Shakespeare, Spenser,the early poems of Mr. John Milton, and, when wecould understand them, the Italian poet Dante, orDavila, and other great Italians who spoke noblyof order and liberty.

Bui on this day of God he never read but fromthese two divine books, Nature and the Holy Scriptures.

In church we had not always any sermon at all.Preaching had not been much encouraged since thedays of Queen Elizabeth. Occasionally one of thelecturers, or gospel preachers, whom Mr. Cromwelland other good men were so anxious to supply attheir own cost, used, in our earlier days, to enterour pulpit and arouse us children with bursts ofearnest warning or entreaty (our parish ministerthen being a meek and conformable person). ButArchbishop Laud soon put a stop to this, and sentus a clergyman of his own type, who fretted AuntDorothy by changing the places and colours ofthings, moving the communion-table from themiddle of the church, where it had stood since theReformation, to the East End, wearing white where wewere used to black, and coats of many colourswhere we were used to white, and in general movingabout the church in what appeared to us Puritanchildren, uninstructed in symbolism, a restlessand unaccountable manner; standing when we hadbeen wont to sit, kneeling when we had been wont tostand, making little unexpected bows in one directionand little inexplicable turns in another, in away which provided matter of lively speculation toRoger and me during the week, since we neverknew what new movement might be executed onthe following Sunday. But to Aunt Dorothy theseinnovations were profanities, which would havebeen utterly intolerable had she not consoledherself by regarding them as signs of the end of allthings. For what to Mr. Nicholls, the parson, wasthe "beauty of holiness," and to our father"personal peculiarities of Mr. Nicholls," and to AuntGretel but one more of our "incomprehensibleEnglish customs," were to Aunt Dorothy the infernalinsignia of the "Mother of abominations."

She therefore remained resolutely and rigidlysitting and standing as she had been wont, a targetfor fiery darts from Mr. Nicholls' eyes, and a soreperplexity to Aunt Gretel, who, never havingmastered our Anglican rubric, had hitherto had noceremonial rule, but to do what those around her did,and was thus thrown into inextricable difficultiesbetween the silent reproaches of Aunt Dorothy'scompressed lips if she did one thing, and thesuspicious glances of the Parson's eyes if she didanother.

On our return Aunt Dorothy frequently made usrepeat the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of theRevelation. We understood that she regarded boththese chapters as in some way directed againstMr. Nicholls. In what way—we discussed itoften—Roger and I at that time could never make out.The great wicked city, with ships, and merchants,and traders, and pipers, and harpers, seemed to usmore like London town, with the Court of the King,than like the parish church at Netherby. Howeverthat may be, I am thankful for having learned thosechapters. Many and many a time, when in afterlife the world has tempted me with its splendours,or straitened me with its cares, and I have beenassailed with the Psalmist's old temptation at seeingthe wicked in great prosperity, the grand wail overthe doomed city has pealed like a triumphal marchthrough my soul, and the whole gaudy pomp andglory of the world has lain beneath me in the powerof that solemn dirge, like the tinsel decorations of atheatre in the sunbeams, whilst above me has arisen,snow-white and majestic, the vision of the Bride inher fine linen "clean and white,"—of the Citycoming down from heaven "having the glory ofGod."

Aunt Gretel, on the other hand, would frequentlyquiet her ruffled spirits after her perplexities, bymaking Roger and me read to her the fourteenthchapter of the Romans, ending with, "We thenthat are strong ought to bear with the infirmitiesof the weak. Let every one of us please his neighbourfor his good to edification. For even Christpleased not Himself."—A rubric which secretlyseemed to us to have two edges, one for AuntDorothy and one for Mr. Nicholls, but of whichAunt Gretel contrived to turn both on herself.

"You see, my dears," she would say, "that is arule of which I am naturally very fond. Because,of course, I am one of the weak. And it certainlywould be a relief to me if those who are strongwould have a little more patience with me. Butthen it is a comfort to think that He who isstronger than all does bear with me. For He knows I donot wish to please myself, and would be thankfulindeed if I could tell how to please my neighbours." Whichseemed to us like the weak bearing theinfirmities of the strong.

After this learning and repeating our chaptersfrom the Bible, while my Father and my Aunts weregoing about the cottages and villages near us onvarious errands of mercy, Roger and I had a freehour or two, during which we commonly resortedin summer to our perch on the apple-tree, and inwinter to the chamber over the porch where thedried herbs were kept, where we held our weeklyconvocation as to all matters that came under ourcognizance, domestic, personal, ecclesiastical, orpolitical. Placidia was not excluded, but being fouryears older, she preferred "her book" and thesociety of our Aunts. Then came the sacred hour withour Father in his own chamber. Afterwards inwinter, we often gathered round the fire in the greathall, we in the chimney-nook, and the men andmaidens in an outer circle, while my Father toldstories of the sufferings of holy men and women forconscience' sake, or while Dr. Antony (when he wasvisiting us) narrated to us his interviews with thosewho were languishing for truth or for liberty invarious prisons throughout the realm.

And so the night came, always, it seemed to us,sooner than on any other day. Although neveruntil our visit at Davenant Hall did I understand theunspeakable blessing of that weekly closing of thedoors on Time, and opening all the windows of thesoul towards Eternity; the unspeakable loweringand narrowing of the whole being which follows onits neglect and loss. To us the Lord's Day was aday of Paradise; but I believe the barest Sabbathwhich was ever fenced round with prohibitions bythe most rigid Puritanism, looking rather to thefence than the enclosure, rather to what is shut outthan to what is cultivated within, is a boon and ablessing compared with the life without pauses,without any consecrated house for the soul built outof Time, without silences wherein to listen to theVoice that is heard best in silence.

It was a point of honor and a badge of loyaltywith many of the Cavaliers to protest against thePuritan observance of the Sabbath. The LadyLucy, indeed, welcomed the sacred day, as she dideverything else that was sacred and heavenly. Shesang to her lute a lovely song in praise of the dayfrom the new "Divine Poems" of Mr. George Herbert,and told me how he had sung it to his lute onhis death-bed only a few years before, in 1632.

But the rest of the family, whilst reverencing herdevout and charitable life, seemed to have no morethought of following it than if she had been a nun ina convent. Indeed, in a sense, she did dwell apart,cloistered in a hallowed atmosphere of her own.

Her husband and her sons requested her prayerswhen they went on any expedition of danger, astheir ancestors must have sought for the intercessionsof priest or canonized saint. The heavieroaths, except under strong provocation, weredropped (by instinct rather than by intention) in herpresence; and mild adjurations, as by heathengods or goddesses, or by a lover's troth, or by acavalier's honor, substituted for them. They wouldlisten fondly as she sang "divine poems" to herlute, and declare she had the sweetest warblingvoice and the prettiest hands in His Majesty's threekingdoms. But it never seemed to occur to themthat her piety was any condemnation, or any ruleto them. Indeed, she had so many minute lawsand ceremonies that, easily as they suited her, itwould have been difficult to fit them into any but alady's life of leisure. She had special prayers andhymns for nine o'clock, mid day, three o'clock, sixo'clock. And once awakening in the night I heardsounds like those of her lute stealing from thewindow of the little oratory next her chamber. Shehad what seemed to me countless distinctions ofdays and seasons, marked by the things she ate ordid not eat, which she observed as strictly as AuntDorothy her prohibitions as to not wearing things.Only in one thing Lady Lucy was happier thanAunt Dorothy; for whilst Aunt Dorothy fondlywished for a book of Leviticus in the NewTestament, and could not find it, Lady Lucy had herbook of Leviticus,—not indeed exactly in the NewTestament, but solemnly sanctioned by theauthority of Archbishop Laud.

A complex framework to adapt to the endlessvarieties and inexorable necessities of any man'slife, rich or poor, in court, or camp, or city; orindeed of any woman's, unless provided with waitinggentlewomen.

In fact, the Lady Lucy herself sometimes spokewith wistful looks and sighs of Mr. Farrar's SacredCollege at Little Gidding (not far from us), betweenHuntingdon and Cambridge, where the voice ofprayer never ceased day nor night, and the psalterwas chanted through in a rotatory manner bysuccessive worshippers once in every four-and-twentyhours.

Sir Walter and her sons never attempted toimitate her. She floated in their imagination, in aland of clouds, between earth and heaven. Herreligion had a dainty sweetness and solemn graceabout it most becoming, they considered, to a noblelady; but for men, except for a few clergymen, asinapplicable as Archbishop Laud's priestlyvestments for the street or the battle-field.

In our Puritan homes there was altogetheranother stamp of religion. Whatever it might lackin grace and taste, it was a religion for men asmuch as for women, a religion for the camp as muchas the oratory. Rough it might be often, and stern.It was never feeble. It had no two standards ofholiness for clergy and laity, men and women. Allmen and women, we were taught, were called tolove God with the whole heart; to serve him at alltimes. If we obeyed we were still (in our sinfulness)ever doing less than duty. If we disobeyed,we were in revolt against the King of heaven.There were no neutrals in that war, no reserves inthat obedience.

And unhappily the Lady Lucy's family, insurrendering any hope of reaching her eminence ofpiety, surrendered more. For, it is not elevating,it is lowering, to have constantly before us animage of holiness which we admire but do not imitate.

In the morning the household met in the FamilyChapel (the Parish Church being for the presentavoided until danger of the infectious sickness wasover). In the afternoon, Sir Walter and his sonsloyally played at tennis and bowls with the youngmen of the household. And in the evening therewas a dance in the hall, in which all joined.

The merriment was loud, and reached Letticeand me where we sat with the Lady Lucy and herlute.

Yet now and then one of the boys would comein and complain of the tedium of the day. It wassuch an interruption, they said, to the employmentsof the week, and just at the best season in the yearfor hunting, and with their father's hounds inperfect condition and training. Tennis they said, wasall very well for boys, and Morris-dancing for girls,but there was no real sport in such things after all,except to fill up an idle hour or two. The nextday there was to be a rare bear-baiting at Huntingdon,and the day after a cock-fight in the next village.And at the beginning of the following weekSir Walter had promised to give them a bull to bebaited. And the Book of Sports, in their opinion,let the Puritans say what they like, was too rigidby half in prohibiting such true old English sportson Sundays.

The Lady Lucy said a few pitiful tender wordson behalf of Sir Walter's bull, which they listenedto without the slightest disrespect, or the slightestchange of mind—kissing her hand and laughinglyvowing she was too tender and sweet for thisworld at all, and that if she had had the making ofit she would certainly have left bears and bullsaltogether out of the creation.

It was without doubt a long and dreary Sundayto Roger and me. It would naturally have beenlong and melancholy anywhere without our Father.

I missed the busy work of the week, which madeit not only a sacred day but a holiday. I missedAunt Dorothy's laws which made our liberty precious.

In the evening he and I had a few minutes alonetogether in the window of the drawing-chamber.

"Oh, Roger," said I, "I am afraid it cannot beright; but I am so glad Sunday is over."

"Has it seemed long to you? I thought I heardyour voice in the tennis-court all the afternoon."

"I am not sure about its being right or wrongfor other people," said Roger. "But I was sure itwas wrong for me. My Father would not have likedit, and, therefore, I could not think of doing it;especially when he was away."

"Not after they laughed, certainly," said he."That set my blood up, naturally; for it was notso much at me as at my Father and all of us. Theysaid I was too much of a man for such a crew."

"Not by name," said he, "but at all he thinksright—at the Puritans, or Precisians, as they callus."

"I went to the Lady Well, and lay down amongthe long grass by the stream which flows from ittowards the Mere, and separates my Father's landfrom Sir Walter's, at the place where you can seeDavenant Hall on one side and Netherby among itswoods on the other. And I thought."

"I thought I had rather live as a hired servantat my Father's than as master here," said he.

"And Olive," he continued, "I seemed like someone waking up, and it flashed on me that God hasno puppets. The devil has puppets. But God hasfree, living creatures, freely serving him. And Ithought how glorious it would be to be a freeservant and a son of his. And then I thought of thewords, 'Thou hast redeemed us to God by thyblood;' not from God, Olive, but to God, to be hisfree servants for ever."

"That was a great deal to think, Roger," said I."I think you did find something in the wood."

"I found Iwanted something, Olive," he said verygravely; "and I thought of something Mr. Cromwellonce said when people were talking about sectsand parties,—'To be a seeker is to be of the bestsect next to being a finder.' He meant to be seekinghappiness, or wealth, or peace, or anything inthe world, Olive, but to be seeking God."

We were looking out across the woods to theMere, which we could also see from Netherby. Thewater was crimson in the sunset, and beyond it theflats stretched on and on, dark and shadowy exceptwhere the rows of willows and alders in the distance,and some cattle on an enbankment, stood outdistinct and black, like an ink etching, against thegolden sky.

And something in Roger's words made the skylook higher and the world wider to me than everbefore.

The next week, Lady Lucy's eldest son, Harry,came from London to the Hall with an acquaintanceof his, Sir Launcelot Trevor.

I thought Harry Davenant the most polishedgentleman I had ever seen. He was the firstperson who ever called me Mistress Olive, and treatedme with a gentle deference as if I had been awoman. I admired his manners exceedingly. Hisvoice, though deep and strong, had something ofthe soft cadence of Lady Lucy's. He always sawwhat every one wanted before they knew itthemselves. He always seemed to listen to what yousaid as if he had something to learn from everyone. His whole soul always appeared to be in whathe was saying or what you were saying, and yetthere seemed to be another kind of porter-soul outside,quite independent of this inner soul, always onthe watch to render any little courtesy to all around.I supposed these courtly attentions had become aninstinct to him, so that he could attend to them andto other things at the same time, as easily as wecan talk while we are eating or walking.

He was his mother's greatest friend. Sir Walternever was this. He was always almost lover-likein his deference and attention to her, stormy andsoldier-like as his usual manner was. But into herthoughts he did not seem to care to enter, any morethan into her oratory. They had some portion oftheir worlds in common, but the largest portion,by far, apart. And the younger boys were likehim, more or less. But whatever Lady Lucy mighthave missed in him was made up to her in her eldest son.

He was a cavalier to her heart,—grave, religious,cultivated,—a soldier from duty, but finding hisdelight in poetry and music, and all beautiful thingsmade by God or by man. It was a great interestto me to sit at Lady Lucy's feet and listen to theirdiscourse about music and painting,—about thegreat Flemish painter Rubens, who had painted theceiling of the king's banqueting-house at Whitehall,the grand building which Mr. Inigo Jones hadjust erected; and about the additions the king hadlately made to his superb collection of pictures.He and Lady Lucy spoke of the purchase of thecartoons of Raffaelle and of other pictures by thisgreat master, and by Titian, Correggio, and GiulioRomano, or by Cornelius Jansen and other Flemishpainters, with as much triumph as if each picturehad been a province won for the crown. He spokealso with the greatest enthusiasm of the painterVandyke, who was painting the portraits of theRoyal Family, and the great gentlemen and ladiesof the Court. He had brought a portrait of himselfby Vandyke as a present to his mother, (only, hesaid, as a bribe for her own by the same hand); andit seemed to me that Mr. Vandyke must be as finea gentleman as Harry Davenant himself, or henever could have painted so perfectly and nobly thenoble features, the grave almost sad look of theeyes, the long chestnut-coloured love-locks, thecourtly air, and the dress so easy and yet so rich.

All this was very new discourse to me; paintings,especially religious paintings such as the HolyFamilies and Crucifixions by the foreign masters whichHarry Davenant described, never having been muchencouraged among us.

When he spoke of music and poetry I was moreat home, and when he alluded with admiration tothe Masque of Comus by Mr. John Milton, I feltmyself flush as at the praise of a friend.

For the names revered at Davenant Hall and atNetherby were usually altogether different. Forinstance, of Archbishop Laud and Mr. Wentworth(afterwards Lord Strafford), whom Lady Lucy andher son seemed to regard as the two pillars ofchurch and state, I had only heard as the persecutorsof Mr. Prynne, and the subvertors of the libertiesof the nation.

But indeed the nation itself seemed to be little inHarry Davenant's esteem, except as a Royal Estatewith very troublesome tenants who had to be keptdown; and liberty, which in our home was a kindof sacred word, fell from his lips as if it had beena mere pretext for every kind of disorder.

With all his refinement, however, it did seemstrange to me that Harry Davenant should enterwith apparent zest into the bull-baiting, bear-baiting,and cock-fighting which were the festivities of thenext week. But he said these were fine oldEnglish amusements, and it was right to show thepeople that the polish of the court did not make thecourtiers dainty or womanish, or prevent theirentering into these manly sports.

Sir Launcelot Trevor was a man of a differentstamp. He had bold handsome features, black hair,black eyes, and low forehead, a face with thosesharp contrasts of colour some people think handsome.But there was something in him from which,even as a child, I shrank, although he paid the mostfinished compliments to the Lady Lucy, Lettice, andme, and to everything we did or said. Hiscompliments always seemed to me like insults. WhenHarry Davenant spoke of Beauty in women, or pictures,or nature, he made you feel it something akinto God and truth, to reverence and give thanks for.

When Sir Launcelot spoke of Beauty, he madeyou feel it a thing akin to the dust, to be fingeredand smelt and tasted, and then to fade and perish.

Harry Davenant's was a polish bringing out thegrain, as in fine old oak. Sir Launcelot's was like aglittering crust of ice over a stagnant pond, withoccasionally a flaw giving you a glimpse into theblack depths beneath.

But I suppose it was the way in which he behavedto Roger that more than anything openedmy eyes to what he was. So that, behind all hisbland smiles on us, I always seemed to see the curlof the mocking smile with which he so oftenaddressed Roger. From the first they seemed torecognize each other as antagonists.

Two days after his coming Sir Walter's bull wasto be baited in a field near the village. Lettice andI were standing in the hall porch, debating whetherwe ought at once to report to Lady Lucy a dangerousadventure from which we had just escaped, orwhether it would alarm her too much, when weheard voices approaching in eager and rather angryconversation. First Sir Walter's rather scornful,—

"Let the boy alone. If his father chose to bringhim up as a monk or a mercer it is no concern ofyours or mine."

"Far from it. Is there not indeed somethingquite amiable in such compassion as Mr. Rogerdisplays for your bull? In a woman it would beirresistible. Should we not almost regret that thehardening years are too likely to destroy thatdelightful tenderness?"

"I see nothing more manly, Sir Launcelot, intormenting a bull than a cockchafer, when neither ofthem can escape. My Father says it is not so muchbecause it is savage, as because it is mean, that hewill have nothing to do with cock-fighting or bearand bull baiting."

But the next moment little Lettice, sweet, generousLettice (herself Roger's prime tormentor whenhe was left to her), confronting the wholecompany—the five brothers and Sir Launcelot—andseizing her father's hand in both hers, exclaimed,—

"For shame on you all, Robert and George, andRoland, and Dick, and Walter" (Harry was notthere, and she scornfully omitted Sir Launcelot);"you are all baiting Roger. And that is worse thanbaiting a dozen bulls. Don't let them, Father. Hehas done a braver thing this very day for us thanbaiting a hundred bulls. This very morning hefaced that very bull in the priory meadow; not anhour ago. We were crossing it, Olive and I, andthe bull ran at us, and Roger saw him and leapt overthe hedge and fronted him, holding up my scarletkerchief, which I had dropped, and then movedslowly backward, never turning till we were safeover the paling beyond the bull's reach."

"I did not think it had anything to do with it,"said Roger quietly. "I did not know any onethought I was a coward."

"A hero and a saint, a Don Quixote and one ofthe godly, all in one," he said, "and such a paragonat sixteen! What might not England expect fromsuch a son?"

He was, moreover, continually referring questionsof conscience to Roger; asking him whether it wasconsistent with Christian compassion to play attennis; he had heard of a tennis-ball once hitting aman in the eye, and who could say but that it mighthappen again? or whether he seriously thought itcharitable to ride horses with sharp bits, since itwas almost certain they did not like it! or whethercertain equestrian feats were not positively profane,since they were brought to Europe by the Moors;or whether indeed there was not a text forbiddingthe riding of horses altogether.

He did not venture on these taunts when HarryDavenant was present. But he generally contrivedto make them with such a quaint and good-humouredair that the boys joined in the laugh, and Roger,having neither so nimble nor so practised a wit,could only flush with indignation, and then withvexation at himself that he could not control thequick rush of blood which always betrayed that hefelt the sting.

Sir Launcelot had many of the qualities whichcommand the regard of boys—an indifference toexpenditure sustained by the Fortunatus purse ofan unbounded capacity for getting into debt, whichpassed for generosity ("if the worst comes to theworst," said he; "I can but make interest with theking, for a monopoly"); a wit never too heavilyweighted to wheel sharp round on an assailant;skill and quickness in all the accomplishments of acavalier, from commanding a squadron of horse totuning a lady's lute; a dashing courage which shrankfrom no bodily danger; (brave I could not call him,for to be brave is a quality of the spirit, and spirit itwas very difficult to conceive Sir Launcelot had,except such as there is in a mettlesome horse); akindly instinct which would make him take care ofhis horses or dogs, or fling a piece of money to acrying child; or in the wars share his rations witha hungry soldier (plundering the next Puritancottage to repay himself). For cruel he was not, atleast not for cruelty's sake; if his pleasures, whetherat the bull-baiting or bear-baiting, or of other baserkinds proved cruelty to others, that was not hisintention, it was only an attendant accident, not,("of course,") to be avoided, since life was shortand enjoyment must be had, follow what might.

But of all that went on in the tennis-court and theriding-ground I knew little, except such glimpses asI have given, until long afterwards, when Lettice,who heard it from her brothers told me; Rogerscorning to breathe a word of complaint on thesubject, either while at the Hall or after our return.

But oh! the joy when one morning my Fathercame up to the Hall with two led horses followinghim, the speechless joy with which, rushing downfrom Lady Lucy's drawing chamber, I met him atthe great door and threw myself into his arms as hedismounted.

Yet I shed many tears when the moment came togo. Lady Lucy, if no more a serene goddess, andembodiment of perfect womanhood to me, was insome sense more by being less. I loved her as adear, loving, mother-like woman. Her tender wordsthat night by my bedside—"Olive, I am not all orhalf I would be. But I could not bear to bedistrusted by you"—and all her frank, gracious,considerate self-forgetful ways had made my heart clingwith a true, reverent tenderness to her, far deeperrooted than my old idolatry. And Lettice, generous,eager, willful as the wind, truthful as the light, nowimperious as an empress, now self-distrustful andconfiding as a little child, her sweet changing beautyseemed to me only the necessary raiment of theever-changing, varying, yet, constant heart, thatglowed in the brilliant flush of her cheek, andbeamed or flashed through her eye.

Lettice and I were friends by right of our differencesand our sympathies, by right of a commonantagonism to Sir Launcelot Trevor, and our commonconviction of our each having in Roger and inHarry Davenant the best brothers in the world.Lettice and Harry royalist, and Roger and Ipatriots to the core; they devoted to the King and theQueen Marie, and we to England and her liberties;they persuaded that Archbishop Laud was a newapostle, we that he was a new Diocletian.

I shall never forget the joy of waking early thenext morning in my old chamber, and looking upand seeing the sheen of the morning in the Mere,and watching Aunt Gretel asleep in the bed closeto mine, and hearing the first solitary crow of theking of the cocks, and then the clacking of his familyas they woke up one by one; the bleating of thesheep in the orchard meadow, and the lowing ofcows in the sheds—the lowing of White-face, andBeauty my own orphaned calf, and Meadow-sweet;and then the cheery voice of Tib, the dairy-woman,recovered from the sickness, remonstrating with themon their impatience; and the calls of Bob, Tib'shusband, to his oxen, as he yoked them and drovehis team a-field; and mingled with all, the deepsoldierly bay of old Lion, the watch-mastiff, and thesharp business-like bark of the sheep-dogs drivingthe flocks to fresh pastures. It was such a delightto be among all the living creatures again. It feltlike coming out of an enchanted castle, drowsy withperfumes and languid strains of music, into the freshopen air of God's own work-a-day world—a worldof daylight, and truth, and judgment, andrighteousness, and duty.

I was dressed before Aunt Gretel was fairlyawake, and down among the animals, eager to learnfrom Tib the latest news of all my friends in fieldand poultry-yard.

But Roger was out before me. And before breakfastwe had visited nearly all our familiar haunts—theheronry by the Mere, the creek where the waterfowlloved to build among the rushes, the swan'snest on the reedy island, the shaded fish-ponds inthe orchard, the little brook below where he and Ihad made the weir, the bit of waste low-groundwhich the brook used to flood, which with Bob'shelp we had dyked and embanked into corn-groundfor Roger's pigeons.

My very spinning task with Aunt Dorothy wasa luxury. I could scarcely help singing with aloud voice, as I span; my heart was singing anddancing every moment of the day. The lessons formy Father were a keen delight, like a race on thedykes in a fresh wind; the Latin grammar was likepoetry to me. It was such a liberation to havecome into a busy, every-day, working world again;—aworld of law, and therefore of liberty, whereevery one had his task, and every task its time, andthe play-hours were as busy as the working-hoursto heads and hands vigorous with the rebound ofreal necessary labour.

All the world became thus again our play-ground,and all the creatures our play-mates, by the merefact that when not at play we, too, werefellow-workers with them—working as hard in our wayas ant or bee, or happy building bird, or cleansingwinds, or even the glorious ministering sunbeamsthemselves, whose work was all joyous play, andwhose play was all world-helpful work.

An then it was inspiring to hear once more thegreat old honoured names of our childhood—SirJohn Eliot (honoured in his dishonoured grave),and Hampden, and Pym, and Sir Bevill Grenvil(loyal then to his country and his King, and afterwards,as he believed, to his King for his country'ssake), and Mr. Cromwell, who whether in Parliament,in the Fens, or on the "Soke of Somersham,"understood liberty to be, liberty to restrain thestrong from oppressing the weak—liberty to speakthe truth loud enough for all the world to hear.

I thought I began to understand what was meantby, "Thou hast set my feet in a large room." Forit seemed like coming forth from the ante-room ofa court presence-chamber, with low-toned voices.perfumed atmosphere, constrained, soft movements,into our own dear, free Old England, where wemight run, and sing, and freely use every freefaculty to the utmost, beneath the glorious openheavens, which are the Presence-chamber of the GreatKing.

CHAPTER IV.

The very afternoon of Roger's and myreturn from Davenant Hall Dr. Antonycame on one of his ever-welcome visits.He had, by dint of much trouble andperseverance, obtained access to Mr. Prynne, in hissolitary cell at Caernarvon, and to Mr. Bastwick andMr. Burton, in theirs, in Launceston and LancasterCastles; and afterwards to the prisons to whichthey were removed, in Guernsey, Jersey, and theScilly Islands, and also to old Mr. Alexander Leighton,in his prison, after his most cruel mutilations.

Often in the summer Dr. Antony left his patientsfor a season, to visit such throughout the land aswere in bonds for conscience' sake, bearing themthe tidings, so precious to the solitary captive, thatin the rush of life outside they were not forgotten;taking them food or physic, and such poor bodilycomforts as were permitted by the hard rules oftheir imprisonment, and bringing back messages totheir friends and kinsfolk. This last year Dr. Antonyhimself (as we heard from others) had beensomewhat impoverished by a fine of £250 sterling,to which he had been sentenced by the Star-Chamberon account of these visits of compassion; althoughthere was no law against them.

This time he brought us grievous tidings frommany quarters; and very grave was the discoursebetween him and my Father.

Everywhere disgrace and disaster to our country;the French Huguenots cursing our Court forencouraging them to insurrection, and then sendingships against them to Rochelle (though, thankHeaven! scarcely one of our brave sailors would beararms against their Protestant brethren—officers andmen deserting in a body when they discoveredagainst whom they had been treacherously sold tofight); our own fisheries on the east coast sold tothe Hollanders, and the capture of one of our Indiamenby Dutch ships; the Barbary corsairs landingon the coast near Plymouth, and kidnapping ourcountrymen and countrywomen from their villagehomes, to sell them as slaves to the Moors in Africa;the King of Spain, the very pillar of Popery andpersecution, the sworn foe of our religion and ourrace from the days of the Armada, permitted torecruit for his armies in Ireland; the Government,with Wentworth (traitor to liberty) and ArchbishopLaud at the head of it, weak as scorched tow tochastise our enemies abroad, yet armed withscorpions against every defender of our ancient rightsat home. The decision but lately given by thejudges against the brave and good Mr. Hampdenas to ship money, placing our fortunes at the mercyof the Court, who chiefly valued them as meantwherewith to destroy our liberties; Justice Berkeleydeclaring from the judgment-seat that Lex wasnot Rex, but that Rex was Lex; thirty-one monopoliessold, thus making nearly every article ofconsumption at once dear and bad. The sweeping,steady pressure of Lord Strafford's (Mr. Wentworth)"Thorough" wrought into a vexation forevery housewife in the kingdom, by the king's pettymonopolies. The heavy links of Wentworth'simperious despotism, filed and twisted by ArchbishopLaud's petty tyrannies into needles wherewith totorture tender consciences, and wiry ligatures wherewithto tie and bind every limb. "Regulations asto the colours and cutting of vestments, worthy(Aunt Dorothy said) of a court tailor, enforced bycruelties minute and persevering enough for amalignant witch." Dark stories, too, of private wrong,wrought by Wentworth in Ireland, worthy of thebasest days of the Roman emperors; tales of royalforests arbitrarily extended from six miles to sixty,to the ruin of hundreds of gentlemen and peasants;disgraceful news of faith broken with Dutch andFrench refugees welcome to the heart of Englandsince the days of Elizabeth, made secure with rightsconfirmed to them by James and by King Charleshimself, now forbidden by Archbishop Laud toworship God in the way for which their fathers hadsuffered banishment and loss of all things,—drivento seek another home in Holland, and in their secondexile ruining the flourishing town of Ipswich, wherethey had lived, and carrying over the cloth-tradewhich was the support of our eastern counties toour rivals the Dutch.

"You have a copy of Fox's Book of Martyrs?"Dr. Antony asked of my Father, after he had beenspeaking of these lamentable things.

"What good Protestant English household iswithout one?" exclaimed Aunt Dorothy; "least ofall such as this, whose forefathers are enrolled inits lists."

"Take good care of it, then," Dr. Antony replied,"for the Primate hath forbidden another copy tobe printed, under the penalties the Star-Chamberwill not fail to enforce."

"The times are dark," he continued, "dark andsilent. I stood this spring by the grave of Sir JohnEliot, in the Church of the Tower; as brave, andloyal, and devout a gentleman as this nation everknew, killed by inches in prison for calmly pleadingthe ancient rights of England in his place inParliament, and then his body refused to his family forhonourable burial among his kindred in his parishchurch in Cornwall, and cast like a felon's into adishonoured grave in the precincts of the prisonwhere he died. And I thought how it might havethrown a deeper shadow over his deathbed if hecould have foreseen how, during these six years, thetyranny would be tightened, and the voice of thenation never once be heard in her lawful Parliaments."

"The voice of the nation is audible enough tothose who have ears to hear," said my Father.

"Yea, verily," said Dr. Antony, "if you hadjourneyed through the country as I have, you wouldsay so. When will kings learn that moans andsubdued groans between set teeth are more dangerousfrom human lips than any torrents of passionatespeech?"

"And," added my Father, "that there is a silenceeven more significant and perilous than these!"

"But there are two points of hope," saidDr. Antony. "One is the Puritan colony in NewEngland, where our brethren have exchanged thevain struggle with human blindness and tyranny forthe triumphant struggle with nature in her primevalforests and untrodden wilds. Four thousand goodEnglish men and women, and seventy-seven clergymen,have taken refuge there during these lasttwenty years. Not poor men only, for they havetaken many thousand pounds of English money, ormoney's worth, with them, forsaking country andcomfortable homes for the dear liberty to obey Godrather than man. And these plantations, after theseverest struggles and privations, are beginning togrow.

"What they hope and mean to be is shown bythis, that two years since, while food was still hardto win from the wilderness, and roads and bridgeshad yet to be made, the plantation of Massachusettsvoted £400 for the founding of a college. Such anact might seem more like the foresight of the fathersof a nation than the care of a little exiled bandstruggling for existence with the Indians, thewilderness, and a hostile Court at home.

"The other point of hope is the Greyfriars' Churchin Edinburgh, where, on the 1st of last March, afterlong prayers and preachings, the great congregationrose, gathered from all corners of the kingdom,—nobles,gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, lifted theirhands solemnly to heaven, and swore to theCovenant." Then Dr. Antony took a manuscript paperfrom the breast of his coat, and read: "'We abjure,'they swore, 'the Roman Antichrist,—all his tyrannouslaw made upon indifferent things against ourChristian liberty; his erroneous doctrine againstthe written Word, the perfection of the law, theoffice of Christ, and His blessed Evangel; his crueljudgments against infants departing this life withoutthe sacraments; his blasphemous priesthood; hiscanonization of men; his dedicating of kirks, altars,days, vows to creatures; his purgatory, prayersfor the dead, praying or speaking in a strangelanguage; his desperate and uncertain repentance;his general and doubtsome faith; his holywater, baptizing of bells, conjuring of spirits,crossing, saving, anointing, conjuring, hallowing of God'sgood creatures.' 'We, noblemen, barons, gentlemen,burgesses, ministers, and commons, consideringthe danger of the true Reformed religion, of theking's honour, and of the public peace of thekingdom by the manifold innovations and evils generallycontained and particularly mentioned in our latesupplications, complaints, and protestations, dohereby profess, and before God, his angels, and theworld, solemnly declare that with our whole heartswe agree and resolve all the days of our lifeconstantly to adhere unto and defend the foresaid truereligion, and forbearing the practice of all novationsalready introduced in the matter of the worship ofGod, or approbations of the corruptions of the publicgovernment of the Kirk, till they be tried or allowedin free Assemblies and in Parliaments, to labour byall means lawful to recover the purity and liberty ofthe Gospel.' 'Neither do we fear the aspersions ofrebellion, combination, or what else our adversaries,from their craft and malice, could put upon us,seeing what we do is well warranted, and arisethfrom an unfeigned desire to maintain the true worshipof God, the majesty of our king, and the peace ofthe kingdom, for the common happiness of ourselvesand posterity. And because we cannot look for ablessing of God on our proceedings except with oursubscription we gave such a life and conversation asbecometh Christians who have renewed their covenantwith God, we therefore promise to endeavourto be good examples to others of all godliness,soberness, and righteousness, and of every duty we oweto God and man. And we call the living God, theSearcher of hearts, to witness, as we shall answer toJesus in that great day, under pain of God'sever-lasting wrath and of infamy; most humbly beseechingthe Lord to strengthen us with his Holy Spiritfor this end.' And this," added Dr. Antony, "hasbeen sworn to not in the Greyfriars' Church alone;but by crowds, signed with their blood on parchmentspread on the stones of the churchyards in Edinburghand Glasgow; yea, in church after church,in city, village, and on hill-side, from John o'Groats'House to the Borders, from Mull to Fife, with tears,and shouts, and fervent prayers."

"It means that the Scottish nation will rather diethan submit to Archbishop Laud's ceremonies andcanons; but that they mean neither to die nor tosubmit; that every covenanted congregation willbe a recruiting ground, if necessary, fora covenantedarmy; that the oath sworn in the Kirk they areprepared to fulfil on the battle-field."

"And a goodly army they might soon discipline,"said my Father, "with the military officers they havetrained under the great Gustavus."

"It means," added Dr. Antony, lowering hisvoice, "that they are ready to kindle a fire forreligion and liberty in Scotland which will not stop atthe Borders, and will find fuel enough in everycounty in England."

"The Court had better, for its own peace, haveheeded Jenny Geddes' folding-stool," said my Father.

From that time (1638), through more than aquarter of a century, public and private life wereso intertwined that no faithful history can dividethem. In quieter times, while the great historicalpaintings are being wrought in parliament-housesand palaces, countless small family-pictures are beingwoven entirely independent of these in countlesshomes. But in times of revolution, national historyand private story are interwoven into one greattapestry, from which the humblest figure cannot bedetached without unravelling the whole web.

Such times are hard, but they are ennobling. Orat least they are enlarging. Faults, and ordinaryvirtues become crimes, or heroical virtues, by mereforce of temperature and space. Principles aretested; pretences are dissolved by the fact of beingpretences. Such times are ennobling, but they arealso necessarily tragical. All noble lives—all livesworth living—are expanded from the small circlesof everyday domestic circumstances into portions ofthe grand orbits of the worlds. Yet, doubtless,thereby in themselves such lives must often becomefragments instead of wholes, must seem in themselvesunfinished, must be in themselves inexplicable.

But, indeed, are not the histories of nations, andrevolutions themselves, even the grandest, butfragments of those greater orbits of which we scarcely,even in centuries, can trace the movement? Is itany wonder then that national histories as well aspersonal should often seem tragical? As now, alas,to us! poor tempest-tossed fragments of the ship'scompany which we deemed should have broughthome the argosies for ages to come, driven to theseuntrodden far off shores; whilst to England, insteadof the golden fleece of peace and liberty, ourenterprise may seem but to have brought a tyranny morecruel and a court more corrupt. Yet may there besomething in the future which, to those who lookback, will explain all!

For England; and perhaps even for these wildshores which we fondly call New England!

Can it be possible that we have won the GoldenFleece, and have brought it hither?

There is something, moreover, in having lived intimes of storm. The temperature is raised at suchtimes; all life is keener, colour more vivid, andgrowth more rapid.

A nation in revolution is, in more ways than one,like a ship in a storm. The dividing barriers ofselfishness are dissolved for a time into a commonpassion of patriotic hope, purpose, and endeavour.We feel our common humanity in our commonthrobs of hope and fear, in our common efforts fordeliverance. And we are (or ought to be) nobler,and more large of heart for ever afterwards. AndI think the greater part are. Perhaps, in somemeasure, all; unless, indeed, it be the ship's cats,who, no doubt, privately pursue the ship's micewith undeviating purpose through the raging ofwinds and waves, and look on the strife of theelements as a providential arrangement to enable themto fulfil their mousing destinies with lessinterruption.

And what such times of revolution do for a nation,ought not Christianity, the great perpetualrevolution, to do for us always?

The great hindrance seems to me to be, that it isso much easier to be partizans than patriots,whether in the Church or State.

If men would do for the country what they dofor the party, what a country we should have!

If Christians would do for the Church what theydo for their sect, what a world we should have!

For a quarter of a century, from the signing ofthe Covenant in the High Kirk of Edinburgh, thelong struggle went on. Nor has it ceased yet,though the combatants have changed, and thebattle-field.

The Scottish covenanted congregations grewquickly indeed into a covenanted army, andadvanced to the border. The King, by ArchbishopLaud's counsel, disbelieving in the Covenant,proclaimed that if within six weeks the Scotch did notrenounce it, he would come and chastise them (in afatherly way) with an army. The King andArchbishop Laud regarded the Covenant as a freak ofrebellious misguided children. The Scotch regardedit as the portion of the eternal law of God whichthey then had to keep; and would keep, or die.

The Scotch had the advantage ofbeing their ownarmy, ready to fight for their Divine law; whilethe king had to pay his army with the coin of therealm, and never could inspire them to the end withthe conviction that they were fighting for anythingbut coin of the realm.

The coin of the realm, moreover, lay in the keepingof those dragons called Parliaments, which hismajesty had termed "vipers" at their last meeting,and in a letter to Strafford, had compared to "cats,"tameable when young, "cursed" if allowed to growold, and which he had therefore banished undergroundfor eleven years into shadow and silence.

When, therefore, the king and the Covenantedarmy met on the borders, it was found that theScotch, commanded, as my Father said, by oldGustavus Adolphus's officers; every regiment as inthat old Swedish army, also a congregation, meetingmorning and evening round its banner of"Christ's crown and covenant," for prayer was arock against which the English army might vainlybreak; but from which, as the event proved, itpreferred to ebb silently away, the pay for which onlyit professed to fight, being, moreover, exhausted.

The king took refuge in a treaty, promising toleave Kirk affairs in the hands of the Kirk, and tocall a free assembly. Poor gentleman, his promiseswere still believed to have some small amount oftruth in them, and a pacification was effected.

Then came the moment of hope for those whohad been watching those movements with theintensest interest in England.

Of the two evils, a remonstrating Parliament inLondon and a fighting Kirk in Scotland, the formernow appeared to the king the least. In the keepingof the Parliament, dragon-monster as it seemed tohim, lay the gold. And once more, after a silenceof eleven years, on the 15th of April, 1640, theParliament was summoned; a weapon welded bythe wrongs and the patience of eleven years into atemper the king had done well to heed.

At the last Parliament they, and brave men likethem, had wept bitter tears at the king's arbitrarymeasures, and at his false dealing.

At this Parliament there were no tears shed.There were no disrespectful or hasty words spoken.

It was as if in spirit they met around the graveof the martyred Sir John Eliot, and would do orsay nothing to dishonour the grave to which sincelast they met he had been brought for liberty.

But no portion of the hoarded treasure could theking force or cajole from their grasp. The courtinsisted on supplies. The Parliament insisted ongrievances.

My Father's voice trembled with emotion when heheard it. "They would have saved him!" he said."They would have saved the country and the king!"

Said Aunt Dorothy grimly, "The king prefersarmies to parliaments; and no doubt he will havehis choice."

A second royal army was raised by enforcingship-money, seizing the pepper of the Indianmerchants, and compelling loans, filling the towns andcities with angry men who dared not resist, and theprisons with brave men who dared. And to rousethe country further, the queen appealed publiclyfor aid to the Roman Catholics, whilst ArchbishopLaud demanded contributions of the clergy. EarlStrafford, recalled from Ireland, was appointedcommander-in-chief. The court endeavoured also toenkindle the fury of the old Border war-memories;but the Borderers were brethren in the faith, and,refusing to hate each other, combined in hating thebishops.

The second army melted like the first, after somelittle heartless fighting in a cause they hated;having distinguished itself mainly by shouting itssympathy with the Puritan preachers in the varioustowns through which it passed; by insisting ontesting whether its commanders were Papists beforeit would follow them to the field; and by drainingthe king's treasury, so that he could proceed nofurther without once more looking to the dreadedguardians of the gold.

"They meet in a different temper from the last,"my Father said, as we walked home from the village,where we had eagerly hastened to meet the flyingPost, who galloped from one patriot's house toanother with printed sheets and letters containing theaccount of the king's opening speech on the 3d ofNovember; "as different as the sweet May daysof promise during which the Little Parliamentdebated, from the gray fogs which creep along theFens before our eyes to-day. Summer, and hope,and restitution brightened before that AprilParliament. Over this lower winter, storms, andretribution; slow clearing of the stubble-fields ofcenturies, stern ploughing of the soil for better harvests,not to be reaped, perchance, by the hands thatsow."

I remember now how one day during thosemonths my Father's hands trembled and his voicegrew low as a whisper as he read to us a lettertelling how a poor reckless young drummer lad,who, when, on leave from the army in the north,had joined a wild mob of London apprentices in anattack on Lambeth Palace, had been racked andtortured in the Tower to make him confess hisaccomplices; and torture failing to make him base,poor boy, how he had been hanged and quarteredthe day after.

"They dared not torture Felton a few years sincefor the murder of Buckingham," my Father said,"and now they twist this boy's offence into treason,because, forsooth, a drum chanced to be sounded bythe mob, that the poor misguided lad may sufferthe traitor's doom, and the honour of his Holiness,their Pontifex Maximus, their Archangel, as theycall him, be avenged."

(These were the things that silenced the pleadingsof pity in good and merciful men when, inafter years, the Archbishop was brought to thescaffold.

Now that the crime and its avenging all are past,and victim, slayer, avenger, all have met before thegreat Bar, it is hard to recall the passion ofindignation these deeds awakened in the gentlest heartswhen they were being done with little chance ofever being avenged. But is not the most inflexiblejudgment the offspring of outraged mercy?)

All through that summer the king, the archbishop,and Strafford went on accumulating wrongs on thenation, too surely to recoil on themselves.

There may have been many tyrannies more terrible.Never could there have been one more irritating,more ingenious in sowing discontents inevery corner of the land.

The archbishop in convocation made a new canon,requiring every clergyman and every graduate ofthe universities to take an oath that all thingsnecessary to salvation were contained in thedoctrine and discipline of the Church of England, asdistinguished from Presbyterianism and Papistry.

I remember that canon especially, because itbrought Roger home from Oxford, where he hadbeen studying during the past two years, and wasabout to take his degree, and led to results, sadindeed for us, though not exactly among the miseriesto be set down to the archbishop. Roger wouldnot swear, he said, against the religion of half thekingdom, at least without understanding it better.

From Northamptonshire, Kent, Devonshire,—oldconservative Kent and the loyal West,—came upindignant petitions against this canon. London wasexasperated by the committal of four aldermen whorefused to set before the king the names of thosepersons within their wards who were able to lendhis majesty money; every borough in the kingdomwas aroused by the presence of its membersignominiously dismissed from the dissolved Parliament;nine boroughs were still more deeply moved by theabsence of their members, imprisoned the day afterthe dissolution in the Tower. Every day broughtreports of some fresh victim fined in theStar-Chamber on account of the odious ship-money.Especial complaints came from the North, whichStrafford was grinding with the steady pressure ofhis presence in the council at York.

And meantime the friendly Scots were practicallyinculcating Presbyterianism and the advantages ofarmed resistance in the four counties beyond theTees, where they had been left in possession untilthey received the price wherewith the king had paidthem for rebellion.

There was much stir and movement in the land allthrough those months. Netherby lay close to thehigh road, and we had many visitors. Mr. Cromwellonce, on his way to Cambridge (for which place hethen sate in Parliament), brief in speech and to thepoint, hearty in look, and word, and gesture, and alsoat times in laughter. Mr. Hampden, dignified andcourtly as any nobleman of the king's court.Mr. Pym, with firm, close-set lips and grave eyes. Hecame more than once on horseback, and put up forthe night, on one of the many rides he took at thattime around the country to stir up the patriots toact together. My father also was often absentattending meetings of the country party at BroughtonHall, the Lord Brooks' mansion, near Oxford, whereRoger, being at the university, sometimes met him.

So the summer passed on, its perishable thingsfading, and its enduring things ripening into autumn.Crop after crop of royal promises budded andbloomed and bore no fruit, until the people grewsorrowfully to understand that royal words, likeflowers cultivated into barrenness in royal gardens,were never purposed to bear fruit, but only toattract with empty show of blossom. The noblespetitioned for a Parliament; ten thousand citizensof London, in spite of threats, petitioned forparliament; and at last once more the king summoned it.

A month afterwards, early in December, my Fathercalled the household around the great hall fire to heara letter from Dr. Antony:

"HONOURED SIR,—Let us rejoice and praise Godtogether. My occupation is gone. The prisons bidfair to be cleared of all save their rightful tenants.Parish after parish will welcome back faithfulministers, undone and imprisoned by Star-Chamber andHigh Commission. Heaven send that prison andpersecution have made their voices strong and gentle,and not bitter and shrill; for I have found the devilnot locked out by prison-bolts. And too surely alsohe will find his way into triumphal processions suchas we have had in London to-day, on behalf ofMistress Olive's old friends, Mr. Prynne, Mr. Bastwick,and Mr. Burton. But let me set my narrativein order.

"A fortnight before the Parliament was openedtwo thousand rioters had torn down the benches inSt. Paul's, where the cruel High Commission weresitting, shouting that they would have no bishop,no High Commission. Now these disorders cease.Once more the gag is off the lips of every boroughand county in Old England; and the bitter helplessmoans and wild inarticulate cries which have vainlyfilled the land these eleven years give place to calmand temperate speech. Petitions and remonstrancespour in from north, south, east and west; somebrought by troops of horsemen. The calmest voicesare heard more clearly.

"'He is a great stranger in Israel,' said LordFalkland, 'who knoweth not that this kingdom hathlong laboured under great oppression both inreligion and liberty. Under pretence of uniformitythey have brought in superstition and scandal;under the titles of reverence and decency they havedefiled our Church by adorning our churches. Theyhave made the conforming to ceremonies moreimportant than the conforming to Christianity.'

"'We have seen ministers, their wives, and families,undone against law, against conscience, aboutnot dancing on Sundays. They have brought it soto pass, that under the name of Puritans all ourreligion is branded. Whosoever squares his actionsby any rule divine or human, he is a Puritan;whosoever would be governed by the king's laws,he is a Puritan; he that will not do whatsoeverother men will have him do, he is a Puritan.'

"The Commons had not sate four days when, onthe 7th of November, by warrant of the house, theysent for Mr. Prynne, Mr. Bastwick, and Mr. Burton,from their prisons beyond the seas, to certify bywhose authority they had been mutilated, branded,and imprisoned.

"And now after three weeks these three gentlemen,freed from their sea-washed dungeons in Jersey,Guernsey, and the Scilly Islands, have this dayarrived in the city. All the way from the coast theyhave been eagerly welcomed, escorted by troopsof friends with songs and garlands, from town totown.

"Five thousand citizens of condition rode forthon horseback to meet them, among them many acitizen's wife, and all with bay and rosemary intheir hats and caps, to do honour to those theirenemies had vainly sought to shame. I trow braveMrs. Bastwick, who stood tearless by her husbandat the pillory, and who hath not been suffered to seehim in his prison since, thought it no shame tounman him by shedding tears of joy to-day. Oldgray-haired Mr. Leighton, moreover, bent withimprisonment and torture, and young John Lilburn,for whom Mr. Cromwell so fervently pleaded, werethere to share the triumph, all marked with honourablescars from the Star-Chamber. This outside thecity. And within, at Westminster, anothervictory—not a triumph but a victory—not festive, butsolemn and tragical, as victories on battle-fields arewont to be.

"This day at the bar of the House of Peers, aboutthree of the clock in the afternoon, Mr. Pym, in thename of all the Commons of England, impeachedThomas, Earl of Strafford, of high treason. Andthis night Lord Strafford lodges in the Tower.

"Scorning the Commons' message, with a proud-gloomingcountenance the earl made towards hisplace at the head of the board. But at once manybade him void the house. Sullenly he had to moveto the door till he was called. There he, at whosedoor so many vainly waited, had to wait till he wassummoned. Loftily he stood to hear the sentenceof the House. He was commanded to kneel, and onhis knees he was committed prisoner to the Keeperof the Black Rod. He would have spoken, but hewho had silenced England for eleven years wassternly silenced now, and had to go without a word.In the outer room they demanded his sword. Thecarl cried to his serving-man with a loud voice totake my Lord-Lieutenant's sword. A crowd throngedthe doors of the House as he stepped out to hiscoach. No fellow capped to him before whomyesterday not a noble in England would have stooduncovered with impunity. One cried to another,'What is the matter?' 'A small matter, I warrantyou,' quoth the earl. Coming to where he had lefthis coach he found it not, and had to walk backagain through the gazing, gaping crowd. He wasnot suffered to enter his own coach, but was carriedaway a prisoner in that of the Keeper of the BlackRod.

"And this night he lodges—scarce, I trow, restsor sleeps—in the Tower. Will the memory of hisold companion in the days before he turned traitorto England and liberty, our noble murdered patriotEliot, haunt his memory there? From his ghost theearl is safe enough. Such ghosts are in otherkeeping and other company. And for the earl's memory,darker recollections than that of Eliot with all hiswrongs may well haunt it, if report speaks truth;recollections which the Old Tower itself, with allits chambers of death, can scarce outgloom.

"But Lord Strafford is not a man to dream whilethere is work to be done, or to look back when lifemay hang on his wisdom in looking forward.

"The first stroke is struck, but the cedar is notfelled yet. Nor can any surmise what it may bringdown with it if it falls.

"Roger will like to hear that his friend Mr. Cromwellpresented the petition for poor John Lilburn,(some time writer for Mr. Prynne) that wasscourged from Westminster to the Fleet prison. Andalso that he hath warmly espoused the cause ofcertain poor countrymen whom he knows nearSt. Ives, robbed of their ancient pasture-rights on acommon tyrannously enclosed by one of the queen'sservants.

"Mr. Cromwell seemed to take these poor men'swrongs sorely to heart, and spoke with a flushedface and much vehement eloquence concerning them,in a voice which certain courtiers thought loud anduntunable, clad in a coat and band they thoughtunhandsome and made by an 'ill country-tailor,' andin a hat without a hatband. But the Parliamenthearkened to him with much regard, and gave greatheed to what he counselled."

"Mr. Cromwell will never forget the old friendsfor the new," said my Father, "nor pass by littleduties in hurrying to great ends."

Aunt Dorothy shook her head. "I do mournover it," said she. "Mr. Cromwell might do greatthings. And here are the Church and State all onfire, and the Almighty sending His lightnings onthe cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bashan, whileMr. Cromwell keeps harping on these petty worldlythings; on the wrongs of an insignificant servantof Mr. Prynne's, which no doubt would get setright of themselves when once the great battle isfought; and on whether some poor clodpoles nearSt. Ives get a few acres more or less to feed theirsheep on. And, meanwhile, the sheep of the Lord'spasture wandering on the mountains without pastureor shepherd! I do think it a pity, too, thatMr. Cromwell does not change his tailor; we oughtto provide things honest in the sight of all men.Not but that I will say," she concluded,"Mrs. Cromwell and the maidens might take some ofthese matters on herself."

I remember that night asking Aunt Gretel if shethought it would be wrong to put Earl Strafford'sname into my prayers. He was not exactly anenemy of mine, or there would be a command to do so;and he certainly was not a friend, nor, now, anylonger "one in authority." But it went to myheart to think how in a moment all his glory seemedturned to dishonor, the crowd gaping on him, andno man capping to him.

"What wouldst thou pray for, Olive?" said AuntGretel. "Certainly not that he may have poweragain, and set up the Star-Chamber, and send thethree gentlemen to the pillory once more."

"The wise and good men think so, or they wouldnot have him sent there," said she.

"The people cannot trust that he would," shesaid. "Even if he promised ever so much andintended it, they could not at once trust him."

"No, never too late for God," said she, slowly."Because God knows when we really intend to giveup sinning, even when we can do nothing to showit to men. So it is never too late for Him to takeHis prodigals home to his bosom."

"Then I can ask for that," said I. And I did.But that night there sank down on my heart forthe first time (the first time of so many in thesolemn years that, followed) the terrible words, "Toolate;" the terrible sense that an hour may comewhen, if repentance towards God is still possible,reparation to man and mercy from man are possibleno longer.

This fervour of patriotic life which animated usall at Netherby made us rather hard, I am afraid,on Cousin Placidia.

Throughout the year, after our sojourn at DavenantHall, she had tried Roger and me (and I believealso secretly Aunt Dorothy) very seriously bybecoming in her way exceedingly religious. Onewinter morning when Roger and I were busy withmy father about our Italian lessons at one end ofthe hall, the following discussion took placebetween Placidia and Aunt Dorothy over theirspinning near the hearth. Placidia had seen, sheinformed Aunt Dorothy, the vanity of all thingsunder the sun, the folly of pride, and the wickednessof all worldly pomp, and she washed decidedly totake her place "on the Lord's side," to work outbetimes her own salvation, and to secure for herselfan abundant entrance into the kingdom. AuntDorothy spoke of the heart being deceitful, andhoped Placidia would make sure of her foundation.Placidia rejoined with some slight resentment as toany doubts of her orthodoxy, that she humbly trustedshe knew as well as any one, that every one's heartwas indeed deceitful above all things and desperatelywicked, that is, every ungodly person's; indeedone only needed to look around in any direction to seeit. Aunt Dorothy replied that, for her part, shefound her own heart still very ingenious in deceivingher, and in need of a great deal of daily watching.

Placidia admitted the necessity. Indeed, shesaid, that on a review of her life she felt that,although she had been mercifully preserved frommany infirmities which beset other people, (her temperbeing naturally even, and her tastes sober,) stillno doubt she shared in the universal depravity.But she had, like Jacob at Bethel, she said, madea solemn covenant with God, promising to give Himhenceforth His due portion of her affections andsubstance; she had signed and sealed it on her knees,and she believed she was accepted, that she was onthe Lord's side, and that, as with Jacob, He wouldhenceforth be on hers.

Aunt Dorothy's spinning-wheel flew with ominousrapidity, but some moments passed before shereplied. Then she said,—

"My dear, I trust that you know the differencebetween acovenant and abargain. The patriarchJacob, on the whole, no doubt meant well, but Inever much liked his 'ifs' and 'thens' with theAlmighty. The best kind of covenants, I think, arethose which begin on the other side. As when theLord said to Abraham, 'Fear not, Abraham, I amthy shield and thy exceeding great reward.' Or,'I am the Almighty God, walk before me and bethou perfect.' Then follow the promises, lavish asHis riches, which fill heaven and earth; free as theair He gives us to breathe. When God gives thereis no limit, no reserve, no condition. But, on theother hand, neither is there reserve, or condition, orlimit when He demands. It is not so much for somuch, butall surrendered in absolute trust. It is,'Be thou perfect;' it is, 'Leave thy country, andthy kindred, and thy father's house;' it is, 'Giveme thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thoulovest.' Is this what you mean by a covenant with God?Think well, for He 'is not mocked.' His hand islarger than ours, as the sea is larger than adrinking-cup; but He will not accept our hands halffull."

"Aunt Dorothy, I have no intention whatever ofbeing half for the world and half for God. I haveno opinion at all of the religion which can danceround May-poles on the week-day, and attend theworship of God on Sundays; or fast and pray onFridays, wear mourning in Lent, and be decked outin curls, and laces, and jewels, on feast-days. Ihave made up my mind never to wear a feather, ora trinket, or a bit of lace to my band, or a lacedstomacher, nor to use crisping-tongs, nor to indulgein any kind of 'dissoluteness in hair,' nor ever tosport any gayer colour in mantle or wimple thangray, or at the most 'liver colour.' I have not theleast intention, Aunt Dorothy, of trying to servetwo masters. I know in that way we gain nothing.But I do believe that those that honour Him Hewill honour, and that godliness hath promise ofthe life that now is as well as of that which is tocome."

"The Lord's honours are not often like KingAhasuerus's," said Aunt Dorothy, gravely; "theCrowns of those He delighted to honour have sometimesbeen of fire, and their royal apparel of sack-cloth.There is such a thing," she continued, herwheel whirling like a whirlwind, "as serving onlyone master, yet that not the right one, though takingHis name. And we are near the brink of thatprecipice whenever we seek any reward from theMaster beyond His 'Well done.' 'I am thy shield,'"she concluded, "'I, the Lord Himself;' not whatHe promises or what He gives, though it were tobe the half of His kingdom."

By this time my Father's attention had beenaroused to the discussion, and rising from the tableand approaching the spinners, he said,—

"What you say, sister Dorothy, reminds me ofsome words I heard lately in a letter of Mr. Cromwell's.'Truly no creature hath more cause,' hewrote, 'to put himself forth in the cause of his Godthan I. I have had plentiful wages beforehand,and I am sure I shall never earn the least mite.'"

"Yea, verily," said Aunt Dorothy, "Mr. Cromwellmay waste too much thought on draining anddyking; but he is a godly gentleman, and he understands the Covenant."

Cousin Placidia, however, pursued her course,and continued a living rebuke to Roger and me ifwe indulged in too noisy merriment, and to any ofthe maids who were tempted into a gayer kirtle orribbon than ordinary. On Sunday she was neverknown to smile, nor on any other day to laugh,except in a mild moderate manner, as a politeconcession to any one who expected it in response to afacetious remark.

Her conversation meantime became remarkablyscriptural. She did not allow herself an indulgencewhich she did not justify by a text; if her dresseswore longer than usual, so as to spare her purse,she looked on it as a proof that she had beenmarvellously helped with wisdom in the choice. If sheescaped the various accidents which not unfrequentlybrought me into disgrace, and my clothes topremature ruin, she regarded it as an interference ofProvidence, like to that which watched over theIsraelites in the wilderness.

Indeed, it seemed to Roger and me that Placidia'sprimary meaning of being "on the Lord's side"was, that in a general way the Almighty should dowhat she liked; and that in particular the weathershould be arranged with considerate reference as towhether she had on her new taffetas or her oldwoolsey. Great therefore was our relief, althoughgreat also our astonishment, when Aunt Dorothyannounced to us one day that Cousin Placidia wasabout to be married to Mr. Nicholls, the vicar ofNetherby.

"Are you not surprised?" I ventured to ask ofmy Father. "Cousin Placidia is such a Precisian,as they call it, and Mr. Nicholls thinks so much ofArchbishop Laud."

"Not much surprised, Olive," he said. "I thinkPlacidia's religion and Mr. Nicholls' are a little alike.Both have a great deal to do with the colour andshape of clothes, and with the places and times atwhich things are done, and the way in which theyare said. And both are prudent persons, desirousof taking a respectable place in the world in areligious way. I should think they would agree verywell."

"I never quite trusted Placidia's professions,"said she; "but this, I confess, goes beyond myfears. A person who never passes what he callsthe altar without making obeisances such as theold heathens made to the sun and the moon, andwho, not six months ago, defiled the house of Godwith Popish incense!"

"She had had so many providential intimations,"she said (one of the habits of Placidia that alwaysmost exasperated Roger was her way of always doingwhat she wished, because, she said, some one elsewished it; and since she had become religious, sheusually threw the responsibility on the HighestQuarter)—"intimations so plain, that she could notdisregard them without disobedience. Mr. Nicholls'coming to Netherby at all was the consequence ofa series of most remarkable circumstances, entirelybeyond his own control. The way in which theprejudice against each other, with which theybegan, had by degrees changed into esteem, and theninto something more, was also very remarkable.And what was most remarkable of all was, that onthe very morning of the day when he proposed toher, she had—quite by chance, as it might seem,but that there was no such thing as chance—openedthe Bible on the passage, 'Get thee out from thycountry, and from thy kindred, and from thy father'shouse, into a land that I will shew thee: and I willbless thee.'"

"But, my dear," remarked Aunt Gretel, to whom,Aunt Dorothy being unapproachable, Placidia hadmade this explanation—"my dear, you are not goingto leave your country, are you? and you do knowthe land to which you are going."

"Of course," said Placidia, "there are alwaysdifferences. But the application was certainly veryremarkable. Mr. Nicholls quite agreed with me,when I told him of it."

"No doubt, my dear, no doubt," said Aunt Gretel,retreating. "But there does seem a littledifference in your opinions."

"Uncle Drayton says we should look on thethings in which we agree, more than on those inwhich we differ," said Placidia. "Besides, if AuntDorothy would only see it, I really trust I havebeen already useful to Mr. Nicholls. He said, onlyyesterday, he thought there was a good deal to besaid in favour of some late ordinances of theParliament against too close approach to Papisticalceremonies. Mr. Nicholls had never any propensiontowards the Pope; and he thinks now that, it maybe, his canonical obedience to Archbishop Laud ledhim to some unwise compliances. But the powersthat be, he says, must always have their due honour.The great point is, to ascertain which powers be,and which only seem to be. And now that theParliament has impeached Archbishop Laud, andsent him to the Tower, this is really an exceedinglydifficult question for a conscientious clergyman, whois also a good subject, to determine."

Aunt Gretel did not pursue the subject, she beingalways in fear of losing her way, and straying intowildernesses, when English politics or rubrics cameinto question.

And in due time Placidia became Mistress Nicholls,and removed to the parsonage, with a generousdowry from my Father, and everything that by themost liberal interpretation could in any way beconstrued into belonging to her, down to a pair ofperfumed Cordova gloves which had been given herby some gay kinswoman, and, having been thrownaside in a closet as useless vanities, cost AuntDorothy a long and indignant search. Everythingmight be of use, said Placidia, in their humblehousekeeping. And she had always remembered asaying she had once heard Aunt Gretel quote fromDr. Luther,—"that what the husband makes byearning, the wife multiplies by sparing."

"An invaluable maxim," she remarked, "for peoplein narrow circumstances, who had married frompure godly affection, without passion or ambition,despising all worldly considerations, like herselfand Mr. Nicholls."

It was a strange Christmas to many in England,that first in the stormy life of the Long Parliament.Earl Stratford had been in the Tower since the 28thof November. A week before Christmas dayArchbishop Laud had been impeached and committed tocustody. There was no thought of the Parliamentdispersing. Mr. Pym and others of the patriotmembers were occupied with preparing for LordStrafford's trial, which did not begin until the 22ndof the following March.

On the other hand, faithful voices, long silent inprisons, were heard again in many pulpits throughoutthe land.

Judge Berkeley, who had given the unjust decisionin favour of ship-money, was seized on thebench in his ermine, and taken to prison like acommon felon.

The great thunder-cloud of Star-chamber andHigh Commission Court had dispersed. The Puritansand Patriots breathed once more, and the greatvoice of the nation, speaking at Westminster thewords which were deeds, while it quieted the criesand groans of the oppressed country, set men'stongues free for earnest and determined speech byevery hall hearth, and every blacksmith's forge,and ale-house, and village-green, and place of publicor social talk throughout the country.

The blacksmith's forge in Netherby village wasindeed a place well known to Roger and me. JobForster, the smith, a brave, simple-hearted giantfrom Cornwall (given to despising our inlandpeasants, who had never seen the sea, and suspected ofbeing the mainstay of a little band of sectaries inthe neighborhood), having always been Roger'schief friend; while Rachel, his gentle, sickly, saintlylittle wife (whom he cherished with a kind oftimorous tenderness, like something almost toosmall and delicate for him to meddle with), hadalways given me the child's place in her motherlyheart, which no child had been given to their houseto fill. Whenever we were missed in childhood, itwas commonly at Job Forster's forge we weresought and found. And by this means we learneda great deal of politics from Job's point of view, aswell as many marvellous stories of God's providenceby sea and land, which seemed to us to showthat God was as near to those who trust Him now,as to the Israelites of old, which, also, Job andRachel most surely believed.

But, meantime, while the clouds over Englandseemed scattering, a heavy cloud gathered over usat Netherby.

The Davenant family had come to the Hall forthe Christmas festivities. We met often during thetime they were there, more than ever before. Theties of friendship and of neighbourhood seemed toprevail over the party strife which had so long keptus apart.

Hope there was also that those party conflicts atlast might cease with the disgrace of the hatedLord-Lieutenant.

His sudden abandonment of the patriot side, hisrapid rise, and his lofty, imperious temper, had notfailed to make enemies even among those of hisown party. Sir Walter Davenant said he had noliking for turn-coats. They always over-acted theirnew part, and commonly did more to injure theparty they joined than the party they betrayed.The haughty earl once out of the way, the kingwould listen to truer men and better servants.

The Lady Lucy held in detestation the earl'sprivate character. The king, she said, was ahigh-minded gentleman, an affectionate husband andfather, his presence and life had done much toreform the court; the earl was a man of commandingability, but his hands were not pure enough todefend so lofty a cause. Better men, she thought, ifin themselves weaker, would yet form stronger staysfor the throne of the anointed of God. If LordStrafford were displaced, she thought, the best menof all parties would unite; would understand eachother, would understand their king, and all mightyet go well. My Father, though less sanguine, wasnot without hope, although on rather differentgrounds. While Lady Lucy believed that LordStrafford's violence and evil life were a weakness tothe cause she deemed in itself sacred, my Fatherthought that Lord Strafford's power of characterand mind were a fatal strength to the cause hedeemed in itself evil. The earl once gone, hebelieved the king would never find such another propfor his arbitrary measures, the lesser tyrant wouldfall like an arch with the key-stone out, and theking would yield, perforce, to the just demands ofthe nation.

However, for the time, Lord Strafford's imprisonmentformed a bond of sympathy between the twofamilies, to Roger's and my great content. Muchfriendly rivalry there was in the Christmasadornment of the two transepts with wreaths of ivy andholly, ending in a free confession of defeat on ourpart, as our somewhat clumsy bunches of evergreenstood out in contrast with the graceful wreaths andfestoons with which Lettice had made the memoryof the Davenants green.

For a moment she enjoyed her triumph, and thenbegging permission to make a little change in ourarrangements, with that quick perception of hers,and those fairy fingers which never could touchanything without weaving something of their owngrace into it, in an hour or two she had made themassive columns and heavy arches of our ancestralchapel light and graceful as the most decoratedmonument of the Davenants, with traceries ofglossy leaves and berries.

Lettice's birthday was on Twelfth Night. Shewas fifteen, nearly two years younger than I was,and three than Roger.

There was great merry-making at the Hall thatday. In the morning distributings of garments toall the maidens in the parish of Lettice's age, byher own hands. She had some kindly or merryword for every one, and throughout the day wasthe soul of all the festivities. There was such afullness of life and enjoyment in her; such a power ofgoing out of herself altogether into the pleasures orwants of others. She seemed to me the centre ofall, just as the sun is, by sending her sunbeamseverywhere. While every one else was full of thethought of her, she was full only of shining intoevery neglected corner and shy blossom, makingevery one feel glad and cared for, down to GammerGrindle's idiot boy.

It was a wonderful joy for me to be Lettice'sfriend. I had almost as much delight in her as SirWalter, who watched her with such pride, or LadyLucy, whose eyes so oft moistened as they restedon her. She would have it that Roger and I mustbe at her right hand in everything.

In the afternoon Harry Davenant came with SirLauncelot Trevor. Harry looked rather grave, Ithought, but he was naturally that; and Lettice'sgaiety soon infected him so that he became foremostin the games, which lasted until the sun went down,and the servants and villagers dispersed to kindleup the twelve bonfires. But Sir Launcelot lookedsorely out of temper. His heavy brows quitelowered over his keen, dark eyes, so that they flashedout beneath like the stormy light under a thundercloud. He scarcely bent to my Father or to anyof us; and although he was lavish as ever ofcompliments to Lady Lucy and Lettice, his browscarcely relaxed to correspond with the lip-smiles withwhich he accompanied them.

When the sun was fairly set, the twelve fireswere kindled, this time on the field in front of theHall, in honour of Lettice, instead of as usual on thevillage green.

We waited to see them kindle up, and then weleft. Roger stayed behind us. There was to besongs and dances round the fires, and then feastingin the Hall late into the night. But Roger onlyintended to remain a little while to see themerriment begin.

I remember looking back for a last glimpse of thefires as they leapt and sank, one moment lightingup every battlement of the turrets, and all thecarving of the windows with lurid light, and flashingback from the glass like carbuncles; the nextsubstituting for the reality their own fantastic lightand goblin shadows, so that not a corner or gableof the old building looked like itself. And Iremember afterwards that close by one of the fireswere standing Roger and Lettice, and Sir Launcelot,near each other; Roger piling wood on the fireat Lettice's direction, and Sir Launcelot standing alittle apart with folded arms watching them. Hisface looked red and angry. I thought it wasperhaps because of the angry glare of the flames. Yetsomething made me long to turn back and bringRoger away with us. It was impossible. Butinvoluntarily I looked back once more: the flamesleapt up at the moment, and then I saw Sir Launcelotand Roger as clearly as in daylight, apparentlyin eager debate.

I lingered to watch them, but just then the fitfulflames fell, I could see no more, and I had to hastenon to follow my Father and Aunt Gretel home.

Before we reached home the clouds, which hadbeen threatening all day, began to fall in showersof hail. We had not been in an hour when, as wewere sitting over the hall fire, talking cheerily overthe doings of the day, Roger suddenly entered, hisface ashen-white, his eyes like burning coals, and,in a low voice, called my Father out to speak tohim outside. For a few minutes, which seemed tome hours, we sat in suspense, Aunt Gretel's knittingfalling on her lap, in entire disregard ofconsequence to the stitches—Aunt Dorothy's spinning-wheelwhirling as if driven by the Furies. Thenmy Father returned alone, as pale as Roger.

He seated himself again, with his arms on hisknees and his hands over his face—an attitude I hadnever seen him in before. It made him look likean old man; and I remember noticing for the firstthat his hair was growing gray.

"Roger and Sir Launcelot Trevor have quarrelled.Roger struck Sir Launcelot, and he fell against oneof the great logs of the bonfires. He is woundedseverely, and Roger is going to ride to Cambridgefor a physician."

"In such a night!" said Aunt Gretel; "not astar; and the hail has been driving against thepanes this half hour!"

The next minute we heard the ring of a horse'shoofs on the pavement of the court, and then thesound of a long gallop dying slowly away on theroad amidst the howling of the wind and theclattering of the hail.

There was no variation in the chapter read or inthe usual words of prayer; only a tremulous depthin my Father's voice as he asked for blessings onthe son and daughter of the house.

And afterwards, as I wished him good-night, heleant his hand on my head, and said—

"Watch and pray, Olive—watch and pray, mychild, lest ye enter into temptation."

"O Father, Roger must have been sorelyprovoked—I am sure he was. I am sure it was notRoger's fault—I am sure; so sure! Sir Launcelotis so wicked, and I will never forgive him."

"Roger said it was his fault, my poor little Olive,"replied my Father, very tenderly, "and that he willnever forgivehimself. And whatever Sir Launcelotsaid or did, you must forgive him, and pray thatGod may forgive him; for he is very seriously hurt,and may die."

"Roger would be sure to say that," I said. "Heis always ready to blame himself and excuse everyone else. But, O Father, God will not let SirLauncelot die! What can we do?"

"Pray! Olive," he said in a tremblingvoice—"pray!" and he went to his own room.

But all night long, whenever I woke from fitfulsnatches of sleep, and went to the window to lookif the storm had passed, and if Roger were coming,I saw the light burning in my Father's window.

The last time Aunt Gretel crept up softly behindme, and throwing her large wimple over me, drewme gently away.

"I have kept such a poor watch for Roger!" Isaid; "and see! my Father's lamp is burning still.He has been watching all night."

"There is Another watching, Olive," she said,softly, "night and day. The Intercessor slumbersnot, nor sleeps. It is never dark now in the HoliestPlace, for he is ever there; and never silent, for Heis ever interceding."

CHAPTER V.

When I awoke again, the cheerful stir oflife had begun within and without thehouse—the ducks splashing in the pondin the front court; the unsuccessful swineand poultry grunting and cackling out their bill ofgrievances against their stronger-snouted orquicker-witted rivals; Tib's cheery voice instructing hercows and calves; and at intervals the pleasantregular beat of the flail in the barn, where they werethrashing the corn,—striking steady time to all thebusy irregular sounds of animal life, and bringingthem into a kind of unity.

All these homely, quiet sounds seemed strangerto me than the howling of the winds, and fitfulclattering of the hail, through the night. Theymade me feel impatient with the animals, and withTib, and with the inflexible every-day course ofthings. Was not Roger—our own Roger—in agonyworse than mortal sickness, in suspense whether ornot his hand had dealt a death-blow. Were not wein dreadful suspense whether his whole life mightnot be overshadowed from this moment as with acurse?

And yet the calves must be fed, and the swinesnuff at their troughs and grudge if they be notsatisfied, and the ducks splash and preen themselvesas if nothing was the matter.

There are many seasons in life when the quietflow of the stream of every-day life, as it prattlespast our door among the familiar grasses and pebbles,falls on the heart with a sense of inflexibilitymore terrible than the storm which ploughs thewaves of the Atlantic into mountains, and snapsthe masts of great ships like withered corn stalks.

The storm had quite passed. The dawn was stillstruggling with the cold winter moonlight. Far offthe gray morning shone with a steely gleam on thecreek of the Mere, were I used to sit quite still forhours while Roger angled, holding his fish-basket,amply rewarded at last by his dictum that therewas one little woman in the world who knew whento hold her tongue, and by the reflecting glory ofhis triumph when he brought the basket of fish toTib for my father's supper. Only last autumn, andnow it seemed as if it had happened in another life.

Aunt Gretel was dressed and gone. My last sleephad been sound. I reproached myself for myhard-heartedness in sleeping at all.

It was still dusk enough to show the faint redlight in my Father's chamber. Was he still watching?

My question was answered by the sound of thepsalm coming up from the hall, where thehousehold were gathered for family prayer. Thisreminded me that it was the Sabbath-day, the onlyday on which we used to sing a psalm at morningprayers. I knelt at the window while they sang.I heard my father's voice leading the psalm, and AuntDorothy's deep second, and Aunt Gretel's tremuloustreble; but not Roger's. I felt so strange to belistening, instead of joining in the song. Such athing had never happened to me before. AuntGretel must have thought it good for me to sleepon, and have crept down stairs like a ghost. Butthe feeling of beingoutside was terrible to me thatmorning. It brought back my old terror aboutbeing "on the wrong side of the tree." But not somuch for myself. For Roger! for Roger! Whatif he should be feeling left outside like this!—outsidethe prayers, outside the hymns, outside the holyfamily gatherings, outside the light and thewelcome! That morning I felt something of whatmust be meant by theouter darkness. The darknessoutside! Even the "darkness" did not seem to meso terrible as the beingoutside! For it showedthere was a within—a home; light within, musicwithin, the Father's welcome within and we outside!Could it be that Roger was feeling this now?

"Roger has been here, Olive," said my Father,answering my looks. "He brought the chirurgeonto the Hall, and came home an hour since, and thenwent back again to watch."

There was no morning walk for us that day. MyFather went to his chamber, my aunts to theirs, andI to the chamber where the dried herbs lay, partlybecause it was Roger's and my Sunday parliament-house,and partly because from it I could see thetowers of Davenant Hall.

In our Puritan household we were brought up withgreat faith in the virtues of solitude. A very solemnpart of our ritual was, "Thou, when thou prayest,enter into thy closet, and shut thy door, and prayto thy Father which is in secret." "The one minuteand unmistakable rubric," my Father called it, "inthe New Testament." For he used to say, "notonly is the solitary place the place for the Redeemer'sagonies and the apostle's bitter weeping; it is theplace of the largest assemblies. For therein passingthe barriers of the congregation, we enter into theassembly and Church of the first-born, and into thetemple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.Any religion," said he, "whose secret springs donot exceed its surface waters, will evaporate in theburden and heat of the day."

We went to church as usual, and slowly andsilently we were coming away, avoiding as much aspossible the usual greetings with neighbours, andI feeling especially anxious to escape Placidia'ssympathy.

But that was impossible. However, as she joinedus she looked really anxious; too anxious even tofind an appropriate text. She took my hand kindly,and said—

And there was something in the "we," and thebriefness of her words, which brought tears into myeyes, and made me think I might still have beenkeeping a hard place in my heart which would haveto be melted.

But we had only just left the church-yard, andgone a few steps beyond the gate on the field-pathto Netherby (I walking behind the rest), when asoft hand was laid on my shoulder, and my face wasdrawn down to Lettice Davenant's kisses, as in alow voice she said—

"Oh, Olive, I am sure Sir Launcelot will get well.My Mother has been saying prayers all night. AndRoger is so good. Indeed, it was not nearly halfRoger's fault. Sir Launcelot did say terriblyprovoking things about the Precisians, and hypocrisy,and your Father."

"My Mother says we ought to forget bitterwords," she said; "and I think we ought—at allevents, until he gets better."

"Oh, Lettice," I implored, "tell me, only me!That I may know, if he should not get better. Rogertold my Father it was all his fault; but I know—Ialways knew—it was not. I shall know this if youwill not tell me another word, and perhaps thinkeven worse things than were said."

"It was not so much the words—they were ordinaryenough—it was the tone," said she. "And,besides, it is so difficult to repeat any conversationtruly; and it was all in such a moment, I can scarcelytell. It began about Lord Strafford, and aboutMr. Hampden and Mr. Pym being canting hypocrites,and Mr. Cromwell being a beggarly brewer; andthen Sir Launcelot muttered something in a whiningtone about wondering that Roger's Father permittedhim to indulge in such ungodly amusements asbonfires; and Roger said it was not fair to attackwhen he knew there could be no retort (meaningbecause I was there); and Sir Launcelot said hebelieved the Precisians never thought it fair to beattacked except behind some good city walls. Andthen followed a fire of words about cowardice, andhypocrisy, and treason; and then something aboutyour father having taken care to leave the Germanwars in good time for his own safety. Then I sawRoger's hand up, thrusting Sir Launcelot away,rather than striking him, I thought. But the nextinstant Sir Launcelot lay on the ground, with hishead against a jagged log, the other end of whichwas in the bonfire, and Roger was pulling him back,and Sir Launcelot swearing something about a"Puritan dog" and being "murdered." And thenI saw the blood flowing from a wound in his head.I gave Roger my veil to staunch it with. But itwould not stop. Sir Launcelot fainted; and Rogertold me to run to my Mother. In five minutes allthe people were on the spot, and Roger was onhorseback riding of for the physician. There! I havetold you all I know," she said, "whether I ought ornot. But don't tell Roger. For I tried to comforthim by saying how he had been provoked. But itdid not comfort him in the least. He looked quitefierce at rue—at me!" said little Lettice, the tearsoverflowing, "when he was always so kind! Andhe said there was no excuse for murder. He waswild with trouble," she continued, sobbing, "not abit like himself, Olive; and since that I cannot tellwhat to say to him. Your ways and ours are notexactly the same, you know. So I have been withmy Mother in her oratory. It is so hard tounderstand anybody. But I hope God understands us all.I do hope He does. My Mother could not find oneof the church prayers that quite fitted. But shejoined two or three together, in the Collects, andthe Visitation of the Sick, and the Litany, whichseemed to say all she wanted wonderfully. I neverknew how much they meant before. And it doesseem as if God must hear; and Roger always sogood. He may say what he likes, always so good,to me and to every one!"

Lettice's tears opened the sluices of mine, andwere a great comfort; and it was a comfort, too, tothink of those dear kind voices joining in LadyLucy's oratory.

When we reached home, the great table wasspread in the hall, and the serving-men and maidenswere standing round it.

"Friends, the hand of God is heavy on me to-day,and you will not look that I should eat breadwhile a life is in peril through deed of one who isto me as my own soul. I might brave it out, andput on a cheerful countenance. But I would haveyou know I am humbled. The blows of an enemywe may face as men. Beneath the rod of the Lordwe must bow like smitten children. And I wouldhave you know I do. Yet I cannot refrain fromtelling you also that it was for bitter words againstgood men that the blow was struck. So much Imust say for the boy, though God forbid I shouldhide the sin."

The general judgment was anything but harshagainst Roger, as was easy to see from the few lowbroken words which interrupted the silence of thatsorrowful meal, and from the response of Tib, towhom I secretly ventured to tell how sorely Rogerhad been provoked.

"No need to tell me, Mistress Olive!" said she."That Sir Launcelot is enough to rouse a saint, hisgroom told my Margery's Dickon. And they maysay what they like, but I wouldn't give a farthingfor any saint that can't be roused."

It was not the public verdict Roger had to fear.Aunt Dorothy took my Father's place at the headof the table, her face white and rigid, carving themeat, but eating not a morsel, nor uttering a word.Aunt Gretel moved about on one pretence andanother, holding half-whispered discourse with theelder servants of the house, from the brokensnatches of which I gathered that she fell intogreat historical difficulties in her double anxiety tosay nothing harsh of the wounded gentleman, andat the same time to prove that Roger had meant noharm. And I, meantime, could scarce have satthrough that terrible meal at all, but for Roger'sstag-hound Lion, who nestled in close to me, pressinghis great head under my hand, and calling myattention by a soft moan, and from time to timesecretly relieving me of the food I could not touch,bolting it in a surreptitious manner, regardless ofconsequences, which said as plainly as possible,"Thou and I understand each other. Our heartsare in the same place. I eat, not because I care astraw about it, but to please thee and helphim." Onlyonce, when my tears fell fast on his nose, as Istooped over him to hide them, his feelings betrayedhim, and his great paws appeared for a moment onthe clean Sabbath cloth, as with an inquiring whinehe started up and tried to lick my face, which Isupposed was his way of figuratively wiping awaymy tears. But at the gentlest touch on his pawshe subsided, casting one anxious glance at AuntDorothy, who, however, neither saw him nor thebrown foot-prints on the tablecloth. Alwaysafterwards he maintained his gentlemanlike reserve,limiting all further expression of his feelings tospasmodic movements of his tail, and to his greatsoft wistful eyes, which he never took off from me,For dogs always know when anything is the matter.Their misfortune is they can never make outwhat it is. Roger's ancient foe, the old gray cat,meantime made secretly off with a piece of meatwhich Lion had dropped. And I caught sight ofher slowly luxuriating over it in a corner, entirelyregardless of the family circumstances.

Every most trivial incident in that day glows asvividly and distinctly in my memory, in the fire ofthe passion that burned through it all, as everydetail of the carving of Davenant Hall in the flamesof the twelve bonfires.

The meal passed in a silence so deep that everywhisper of Aunt Gretel's and every moan of Lion'swere clearly heard. But afterwards the men slunkhastily away to the farm-yard and stables, and Tibwith bones and fragments to her hens and pigs, andthe maidens began to clear away the woodentrenchers and our pewter dishes, the clatter andrattle sounding singularly noisy without thecheerful talk which generally accompanied it.

Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Gretel, and I, went, at hissummons, into my Father's justice-room. "Wheretwo or three are gathered together," said he; andwithout further preamble we all knelt down whilehe prayed, in a few words and quiet (to the ear).For he seemed to feel the great, loving, omnipotentPresence; not far off, where cries only could reach,but near, close, overshadowing, indwelling, toonear almost for speech. And we felt the same.

When he ceased, it was some minutes before werose. And the silence fell on me like an answerlike an "Amen," like one of those "Verilys" whichshine through so many of the Gospel words, andillumine them so that they may read in the dark;in the dark when we most need them.

Before we left, I told him of Lady Lucy andLettice praying the Collects for Roger in heroratory.

My Father turned away with trembling lips tothe window. Aunt Gretel sobbed, Aunt Dorothysaid, with a faint voice,—

We had not left the room when Lettice's whitepalfry flashed past the door, and in another momentshe had met us in the porch.

"Sir Launcelot will live!" she said. "The physiciansays there is every hope; and he sleeps. Ifhe wakes better, all will be right; and Roger waitsto see, because he still fears. But I am sure allwill be well. And I could not bear you shouldwait; so my mother let me come."

In his thankfulness my Father forgot the statelycourtesy with which he usually treated Lettice, andstooping down, took her in his arms, as if she hadbeen me, and kissed and blessed her, and called her"God's sweet messenger and dove of hope!" andprayed she might be so all her life. And AuntGretel disappeared to tell every one. But AuntDorothy stood still where she was, and covered herface with her hands and wept unrestrainedly in away most uncommon with her.

Lettice, with her own sweet instinct when tocome and when to go, was on the steps by the doorin a moment (anticipating her groom's ready hand),on her white pony, waving her hand to us as wewatched her in the porch, and away out of sight,escaping our thanks, and leaving us to our hope.

Slowly the dispersed household, who had all beeninvisibly bound to the centre they nevertheless wouldnot approach, gathered in the hall from stall, andshed, and field.

"Friends, God has given us hope. Therefore letus pray." And for a few minutes we all knelttogether while he prayed, in brief trustful words,ending with the Lord's Prayer, in which all the voicesjoined, at least all that could, for there were manytears.

Then my Father read Luther's Psalm, "God isour refuge and strength, a very present help in timeof trouble."

And we felt it was true. And so the serviceended. And once more the household scattered.For Roger had yet to return, and we all felt afamily-gathering would be a welcome he could ill bear.So Aunt Dorothy went to her chamber, and AuntGretel to her German hymn-book by the fireside,and I to my place at her feet, and then to watchfrom the porch. For my Father went out to meetRoger.

They came back together, my Father's hand onRoger's shoulder, half as on a child's for tenderness,half as an old man's on a son's for support.

Roger kissed me and Aunt Gretel as he passed,and took my hand and tried to say something; butsaid nothing, only let me sob a minute on hisshoulder, and then went up to his chamber.

We were used rather to repress than to giveutterance to feeling in our Puritan households. AndLion was the only person who made much show ofwhat he felt, twisting and whining and fondlinground Roger in a way very unsuited to his giantbulk. We heard him pacing after Roger to the footof the great staircase. Upstairs no dog under AuntDorothy's rule would venture, under the strongestexcitement; so after lying expectant at its foot forsome time, Lion returned to express his satisfactionin a more composed manner to me.

At family-prayer that night, my Father made onebrief allusion of fervent thankfulness to the mercyof the day. More neither he nor Roger could haveborne.

And so that Sabbath of unrest ended. To us, butnot to Roger; although I only learned this longafterwards. For no lamp marked the watch of agonyhe kept that night. And on his haggard countenance,when he came down the next morning, noone dared question nor comment.

For while others rejoiced in the deliverance, hewrithed in agony under the burden and in the coilsof his sin. The accident of the log being at hand,that might have made it murder, and the otheraccident, that the wound had not been an inch nearerthe temple or a barley-corn deeper, made absolutelyno difference in the burden that weighed on him.If Sir Launcelot had died, the punishment wouldhave been heavier; but not the remorse. Andalthough his living was the deepest cause of thankfulness,yet it was no lightening of the sin. For itwas the fountain of the sin within that was Roger'smisery; the fountain deep in the heart.

Now he began to feel the meaning of the words,"Out of the heart." Now the old difficulties heand I had discussed in the apple-tree and in theherb-chamber rushed back on him. Now he beganto feel that it was no mere entertaining questionin metaphysical dynamics whether he was a freeagent or not, but a question of moral and eternallife or death.

Could he have resisted the temptation to strikeSir Launcelot? Or could he not? His hand hadstirred to deal that blow, at the bidding of thebitter anger in his heart, as instinctively and almostas unconsciously as the indignant blood had rushedto the cheek. What had stirred the suddenmovement of anger in his heart? Far bitterer wordsfrom the lips of a stranger had not moved himas those mocking tones of Sir Launcelot's. Thestrength of that fatal impulse was but the accumulatedforce of the irritation of countless pettyprovocations, not retaliated outwardly, but suffered toferment in the heart. Nor was that last sinaltogether rooted in sin. Roger's search into his ownheart was made with too intense a desire of beingtrue to himself and to God for him to fall into thatblind passion of self-accusing. It had been morethan half-rooted in justice, just anger againstinjustice, generous indignation against ungenerousslander, truth revolting against falsehood. And sogradual (and in part so just) had been the growthof deep-rooted detestation of Sir Launcelot'scharacter, that the last act—which might have beencrime in the eyes of man, which was crime in theeyes of God, whose judgment is not measured byconsequences—had become almost as irresistibleand instinctive as the movement of the eyelid tosweep a grain of dust from the eye.

When, then, could he have begun to resist?When would it have been possible to stem the littlestream which had swollen into a torrent that hadall but swept his life into ruin? Where was thepoint where sin and virtue, hatred which leads tomurder, and justice which is the foundation of allvirtue, began to intertwine until they were ravelledinextricably beyond his power to sever ordistinguish? Had there ever been such a point? Mustnot all, he being as he was by nature, and thingsbeing as they were, and Sir Launcelot being as hewas, have necessarily gone on as it had, and led tothe result it led to?

"This anguish is no fruit of inevitable necessity.It was sin—it was sin. I have sinned." Andthen—

"I have sinned, because there is sinin me. Sinin me; no mere detached faults, no isolated wrongacts, but a fountain of evil within me, from whichevery evil thing proceeds. Out of the heart—outof the heart; not from without, not somethingmerely in me. It isI myself that am sinful, thathave sinned. This one evil thing, which, unlike allother seemingly evil things, storms or frosts, orcorruption and death itself, never produces goodfruit, but only evil fruit, is springing is aninexhaustible flow from the depths of my innocentbeing."

"Free? I amnot free! I am in bondage. Iam a slave. I am tied and bound. Yet this bondageis no excuse; it is the very essence of my sin.I cannot explain it; but I feel it. I feel it in thisanguish which I cannot escape any more than wecan escape from anguish in the bones by writhing.For this is not the anguish of blows or of wounds,but of disease within, growing from my inmostheart, preying on my inmost life. O God, I havesinned, I am a sinful man. In me is no help. Isthere none in the universe, none in Thee?"

Then from the depth of the anguish came therelief. The thought flashed through him—

"Unless one worse than the worst conception manever formed of the devil is the Maker of man andthe Omnipotent Ruler of the world, it is impossiblethat we should be so powerless in ourselves to overcomesin, and so agonized in remorse for it, and yetthat there should be no deliverance."

That thought made a lull in his anguish for atime, a silence; that thought, and the mere exhaustionof the conflict. For his thoughts had whirledhim round until thought, with the mere rapidityof motion, became imperceptible. In the centre ofthe whirlwind there was stillness, and therein he layprostrate, dumb, and exhausted.

On his mind, wearied out with vain thinking, onhis heart, numb with suffering, fell in the pause ofthe storm old sweet, familiar words, still smallvoices, soft echoes of sacred hymns learned inchildhood; those old familiar, simple words, wherewiththe Spirit, moving like a dove on the face of thewaters, knows how to win entrance into soulstempest-tossed, when new words, though wise and deepas an archangel's, would only sweep past its closeddoors undistinguished from the wail of the winds,or the raging of the seas on which it tosses.

Forgiveness; not as a far-off result of a life ofexpiation, but free, complete, present. Peace; notafter years of doubtful conflict, but now, to strengthenfor the conflict. Yet these were not the wordshe most wanted then. It was not so much thatguilt pressed on him as a burden, as that sin boundhim like a chain. Not peace he most wanted, butpower; freedom to fight, power to overcome. Itseemed to him as if what he longed for was not somuch "Go in peace," as "Come! and I will chastenthee, smite thee low, humble thee in the dust; butmake thee whole."

Not soft words of comfort, but strong words ofhope and promise, were what he needed, and theydid not seem to come.

He crept out of the house before dawn to obtaintidings at the Hall of Sir Launcelot, and to quietthe restlessness of his heart by outward movement.

On his way he passed the forge where Job Forster,the blacksmith, lived alone with his wife at the edgeof the village opposite to ours, on the way to theHall.

There was a light in Job's window; a strangesight in his orderly and childless home. The redglare it cast across the road was struggling withthe growing dawn. As Roger approached, it wasput out; and just when he reached the door it wasopened, and Job's tall figure issued forth.

"Thee had best not be roaming about the countryby theeself in the dark like a ghost," said he."It's wisht!"

"There was a light in your window, so I thoughtRachel might be ill," said Roger.

"There's nought ailing with us," repeated Job;and after some hesitation he added, "We were butthinking of thee."

"You used not to need a lamp to think by," saidRoger, touched more than he liked to show.

"No, nor to pray by," said Job. "But wewanted a promise, she and I." (Job seldom calledhis wife anything but she.) "We wanted a promise,Master, for thee. For she thought the devil wouldbe sure to be busy with thee just now, and sodid I."

"They are as plenty as the stars," said Job, "butwe couldn't light on the one that would fit. Andit's bad work hammering them promises to fit ifthey don't go right at first."

"As many as the stars, and not one that fits me!"said Roger, unintentionally betraying the strugglesof the night. "Peace, and pardon, and everythingevery one wants, but not what I want. You foundnone, Job! Then, of course, there was nothingmore to be done. You and Rachel wouldn't givein easily."

"Well, Master Roger," said Job, "we didn't.But we came to a stand, and for a while gave uplooking altogether. And I sat down on one edgeof the bed and she on the other, and we said nothing.But she wept nigh as bitter as Esau, for sheever had a tender heart for thee, having none of herown, and thee no mother. When all at once sheflashed up through her tears, and said, 'Why, Job,we've gone a-hunting for a promise, and we've gotthem all to our hand. All in Him! Yea and amen,in Him! We've forgotten the blessed Lord!' Thenit struck me all of a heap what fools we were; andI could have laughed for gladness, but that shemight have thought I'd gone mazed. So I onlysaid, 'Why, child, here we've been chattering likecranes, as if we'd been all in the twilight, like poorold Hezekiah. We've been hunting for the promises,and we've got the Gift! We've been groping forwords, and we've got the Word.' So we kneltdown again, and begged hard of the Lord to mindhow He was tempted and forsaken, and to mindthee, Master Roger, and help thee any way Hecould. And we rose up wonderful lightened, sheand I. And then the promises came falling aboutus as thick as hail; and uppermost of them all, 'Ifthe Son shall make you free, you shall be freeindeed;' 'Reconciled to God by His death; saved byHis life;' and, 'I am come that they might havelife.'"

"Maybe, Master Roger," said Job. "They'remighty words. But, please God, thee and she andI never forget what we learnt to-night. Words arenot so strong always the thousandth time as thefirst. But His voice goes deeper every time wehearken to it. And every sore needs a fresh salve.But His touch is a salve for all sores. Never yoube such a fool as we were, Master Roger. Neveryou go creeping back into the dark hunting for apromise and forget that they are all, yea and amen,in the Lord. No more if's or maybe's, orperadventure's, but yea and amen in Him for us all forever."

Roger grasped Job's hand in silence, and went onto hear tidings of Sir Launcelot.

The night had been quiet; the fever had subsided,and the danger was over. And Roger came backto his chamber at Netherby to give thanks to God.For danger averted from others, for a curse avertedfrom himself, but above all, for the glorious promiseof freedom now and for ever—freedom to overcomesin, freedom to serve God. Freedom in the liberatingSaviour, life in the Life, sonship in the Son,now and for ever.

The various streams of the various lives whichhad been flooded into one by the common anxietyabout Roger and Sir Launcelot soon shrank backinto their various separate channels.

Ah! if we could all keep at the point, "I willarise," or better still, at the place where the Fathermeets us, how good, and lowly, and tender-heartedwe should be! No, "thou never gavest me a kid;" no,"this thy son, which hath devoured thysubstance!" Strange that the memory of such moments (andwhat Christian life can be without such?) shouldnot keep the heart ever broken and open. The bestway towards this, no doubt, is to have such anarising and such an embracing every day we live.I am sure we need it. However, we did not exactlydo this at that time at Netherby.

Aunt Dorothy, on thinking matters over with her"sober judgment," thought it a duty to warn usagainst the "spirit of bondage," which, with allher sweetness, had restrained poor Lady Lucy'sprayers to the limits of the Prayer-Look. CousinPlacidia, the immediate anxiety having subsided,could not but feel that Roger's vehemence hadadded another step to the distance which alreadyseparated them. Once on that Pharisaic height, towhich, alas! we so easily rise without any troubleof climbing, being puffed up thither by windysubstances within and without, other people's fallsnecessarily increase our comparative elevation abovethem; and whether this is caused by their descentor by our ascent is difficult to determine; just as inthe case of one boat passing another, it is difficultby the mere sense of sight to ascertain which ismoving. Not that Placidia asserted this conscioussuperiority by reproaches. Did she need to descendto speech? Was not her life a reproach? Thatplacid life, unbroken by any movement deeper thanthe soft ripples of an approving conscience; or acalm disapproval of any one attempting anencroachment on her rights,—which of course shenever permitted. Had she not heard of ArchbishopLaud's cruelties to the three gentlemen in thepillory with no further emotion than a gentle regretthat the three gentlemen could not have held theirtongues? Had she not, on the other hand, heardthe tidings of Lord Stratford's arrest, and thedestruction of the Star-Chamber Court, with no morevehement feeling than a remark on the vanity ofhuman greatness, and a gentle hope that it mightlead to the abolition of the very inconvenientmonopolies on pepper and soap?

Had she not always warned Roger and me againstseverity on Sir Launcelot? Had she not even gonethe length of pronouncing him a very fine gentleman?And what could be more striking than thesubsequent justification of her warnings by therevengeful act to which Roger had been betrayed?

Under all these circumstances, Placidia's forbearancemust have seemed to herself remarkable. Sheuttered no rebuke, she pointed no moral, byreminding us of her prophetical sayings. She merelytowered above us on her serene heights, a littlehigher, a little more serene—a very little—thanbefore. And she called me "Olive, my dear," andRoger "poor Roger." But that was partly, nodoubt, on account of her being married.

Roger bore her superiority most meekly. Indeed,I believe he felt it as much as she did. For Rogerdid remain at that point of penitence and pardonwhere the heart keeps sweet, and lowly, and tender.Which, most certainly, I very often did not. ForPlacidia's condescension, especially to Roger, chafedme often past endurance.

She had been saying (I forget in what connection)that she hoped Roger would not be too muchcast down. "It was never too late to turn over anew leaf; and then there was the consoling exampleof the Apostle Peter. There was reason to believethat the Apostle Peter was a wiser and better manall his life from his terrible fall. And we know that'all things work for good,'" said she, "'to them thatare called.'"

Then Roger, sitting at the other end of the hallcleaning his gun, as we believed out of hearing,suddenly rose, and coming to where we were sitting,stood before Placidia with compressed lips andarms folded tightly on his breast,—

"Cousin Placidia," he said, "never, never saythat again. St. Peter was not wiser and better, oreven humbler for denying Christ. No doubt hewas wiser, and better, and tenderer for that look, forever and ever; and better for the bitter weeping;but not for the denial, not for the sin."

Said my Father, who came in behind Roger as hespoke, laying his hand on Roger's shoulder,—

"True, Roger, true; but though sin can neverwork for good, the memory of sin may; and at anypoint in the lowest depths where we turn our backon the husks and our face to the Father's house,God will meet us, and from that moment make theconsequences, bitter as they may be, begin to workfor good to us."

"To us! Father, to us," said Roger, "but toothers—how to others? To those our misdoing mayhave misled or confirmed in evil? We may stop arock hurled down a precipice. But who can stopall it has set in motion, or undo the ruin it haswrought in its way?"

"Nothing works for good," said my Fathermournfully, "to those whose faces are turned from God.But He can help us, and will, if we set our wholehearts to it, to counter-work the evil we havewrought. Counter-work, I say, not undo; for toundo a deed done is impossible even to Omnipotence.And that makes sin the one terrible andunalterably evil and sorrowful thing in the world, andthe only one."

The words fell heavily on my heart. Was thisthe gospel? I thought. Evil never, never to beundone, sin never to be the same as if it had notbeen? Placidia said no more until Roger and myFather went out on the farm together, and we wereleft alone with Aunt Gretel, and then she observedin her deliberate way, with a slow shake of herhead,—

"I hope Cousin Roger is not still in the dark. Itrust he understands the gospel—"

"What do you mean by the gospel, Placidia?"said I, half roused on Roger's account and halftroubled on my own.

Placidia, always ready (at that time) with atheological definition, neatly folded and packed,entered into a disquisition of some length as to what sheunderstood by "the gospel." In a deliberate andbusiness-like manner she undertook to explain thepurposes of the Almighty from the beginning, as ifshe had, in some inexplicable way, been in theconfidence of Heaven before the beginning, andcomprehended not only all the purposes of the Eternal,but the reasons on which these purposes werefounded. The effect produced on my mind was as if thewhole life-giving stream of redeeming love flowingfrom the glorious unity of the living God, theFather, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, had been frozeninto a rigid contract between certain high sovereignpowers for the purchase of a certain inheritance fortheir own use, in which the utmost care was takenon all sides that the quantity paid and the quantityreceived should be precisely equivalent. It was asif the whole living, breathing world, with itsinfinite blue heavens, its abounding rivers, its wavingcorn-fields, its heaving seas, and all that is therein,had been shrivelled into a map of estates, in whichnothing was of importance but the dividing lines.These "dividing lines" of her system might, foraught I knew, be correct enough, might be those ofthe Bible itself; but the awful Omnipresence, thereal holy indignation against wrong, the love, thelife, the yearning, pitying, repenting, immutablyjust, yet tenderly forgiving heart which beats inevery page of the Bible, had vanished altogether.All the while she spoke, as it were in spite ofmyself, the words kept running through my head,"They that make them are like unto them."

"I think I have stated the gospel clearly. I onlyhope Cousin Roger understands it."

"I am sure I do not know, my dear," said AuntGretel (for Aunt Gretel, being always afraid of insome way compromising Dr. Luther by any confusionin her theological statements, seldom venturedout of the text of Scripture). "I am sure, my dear,I do not know. I am no theologian. And it is ablessing that the Holy Scriptures provide whatDr. Luther calls a gospel in miniature for those who areno theologians: 'God so loved the world that Hegave His only begotten Son, that whosoeverbelieveth in Him should not perish, but haveever-lasting life.' That is my gospel, my dear. It isshorter, you see, than yours, and I think ratherbetter news; especially for the wandering sheep andprodigal sons, and all the people outside, and for thosewho, like me, trust they have come back, but stillfeel, as I do, very apt to go wrong again."

"Mr. Nicholls always says I have rather aremarkably clear head for theology," said Placidia."But gifts differ, and we have none of us anythingto be proud of."

"No doubt, my dear," said Aunt Gretel. "Atleast I am sure I have not. But I cannot say Ithink the punishment, or at least the sad consequencesof sin are all exactly taken away for us, atleast in this life. For instance, there is GammerGrindle's grandchild, poor Cicely, as pretty a girlas ever danced around the May-pole, that people saySir Launcelot Trevor tempted away to London, andleft to no one knows what misery there. (If it wasnot Sir Launcelot, may I be forgiven for joining inan unjust accusation; but he was seen speaking toher the evening before she left.) Now if Sir Launcelotwere to repent, as I pray he may, that would notbring back the lost innocence to little Cicely; nordo I see how the thought of her could ever bringanything but a bitter agony of remorse to him."

("Ah," interposed Aunt Dorothy, who had joinedus, "I did speak my mind, I am thankful to say,about those May-poles.")

"What is forgiveness, then?" resumed Placidia."And what is the good of being religious, if we areto be punished just the same as if we were not forgiven?"

"The blessing of forgiveness," said Aunt Dorothy,"isbeing forgiven; and the good of being godlyis, I should think, being godly."

"Forgiveness, my dear," added Aunt Gretel,"What is forgiveness? It is welcome back to theFather's heart. It is the curse borne for us andtaken from us out of everything, out of death itself.It is God with us against all our sins, God for usagainst all our real foes. It is the broken linkreknit between us and God. It is the link brokenbetween us and sin. What would you have better?What could you have more? Once on the Father'sheart, can we not well leave it to Him to decidewhat pain we can be spared, and what we can notbe spared, without so much the more sin, which isso infinitely worse than any pain."

"My theology," Aunt Dorothy continued, "is thedoctrine Nathan taught when he said to David,'The Lord hath put away thy sin, but the childshall die,'—and to the Apostle Paul when he wrote,'God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth thatshall he also reap:' the theology our fathers taughtus; no gospel oftolerating sin, but offorgiving anddestroying it. 'Christ has redeemed us from thecurse of the law, being made a curse for us.' Hehas brought us under the rod of the covenant,having Himself 'learned obedience through the thingswhich He suffered.' There is as much mercy and asmuch justice in one as in the other. I hope, mydear," she concluded, "you and Mr. Nicholls doindeed understand the gospel. But, I confess, peoplewho get into the Covenant so very easily do puzzleme. They say the anguish all but cost Dr. Lutherhis life, and Mr. Cromwell his reason."

Placidia, from her double height of spiritualserenity and semi-clerical dignity, looked mildly downon Aunt Dorothy's suggestions.

"Aunt Dorothy," said she, "I have often thought,you scarcely comprehend Mr. Nicholls and me.But it is written, 'Woe unto you when all menspeak well of you.' And as to Cousin Roger'sGospel, I should call it simply the Law."

Soon after Placidia rose to leave. But as she wasputting on her mufflers, she remarked, as if thethought had just occurred to her,—

"Aunt Dorothy, those three beautiful cows UncleDrayton gave me, I am a little anxious about them:the glebe farm is on high ground, and the grass isnot so rich as they have been used to, and I wassaying to Mr. Nicholls yesterday morning that Iwas sure Uncle Drayton would be quite distressedif he saw how much less yellow and rich the butterwas than it used to be. And Mr. Nicholls said hequite felt with me. And Uncle Drayton is alwaysso kind. So I said I thought I had better be quitefrank with Uncle Drayton. You know I always amfrank, and speak out what I think. It is no meritin me. It is my nature, and I cannot help it. AndMr. Nicholls said he thought I had. And yesterdayevening it happened that we were passing themeadow by the Mere, and there were no cattle onit. And I said to Mr. Nicholls at once, what a pitythat beautiful grass should run to seed, and ourbutter be such a poor colour. And Mr. Nichollssaw it at once. And he advised me—or I suggestedand he approved of it, I cannot be certain which(and I am always so anxious to report everythingexactly as it happened)—at once to go to UncleDrayton and ask him if he would allow our threecows just to stand for a little while in that meadow,while there are no other cattle to put in it, just toprevent the pasture running to waste, which I knowwould be quite a trouble to Uncle Drayton if hethought of it, only no one can be in every place atonce, and no doubt he had forgotten it."

"Very few people's eyes can be in every place atonce, certainly, Placidia," said Aunt Dorothy, withpoint. "But it so happens that your uncle had notforgotten that meadow. And this morning Bobdrove all our cows there."

"Oh," said Placidia, "that is quite enough. Ionly felt naturally anxious that nothing should bewasted, especially when we happened to be wantingit. But, of course, a poor parson's wife cannotexpect such butter as you have at Netherby; onlyI always remember the 'twelve baskets,' and howimportant it is 'nothing should be lost,' and thevirtuous woman at the end of the Proverbs. I shallalways have reason to be grateful to you, AuntDorothy, for making me learn so much Scripture."

"Thank you, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy, "youalways had an excellent memory. But it is veryimportant with the Holy Scriptures, at least theEnglish version, not to read them from right toleft."

So Cousin Placidia departed, leaving Aunt Dorothywith a comfortable sense of having defeated aplot.

"Poor Placidia," said he, "I met her on her wayhome, and I really was quite touched by her gratitudefor those few cows I gave her, and also by thefeeling she expressed about Roger. It seems theglebe pasture does not agree with the beasts as wellas ours, and she had been rather troubled about thebutter, but had not liked to speak of it, especiallywhen we were in such anxiety about Roger. Itreally shows more delicacy of feeling than I thoughtPlacidia possessed, poor child. And it shows howcareful we ought to be not to form uncharitablejudgments. So I ordered Bob to put those threecows with ours in the Mere meadow for a littlewhile."

"Well, I cannot be sure, but I think she did;and I think it was a very sensible notion."

"Bob spoke rather sharply," said my Father; "heis apt to be very free-spoken at times; he said hehad like to look well to our pastures if we were togive change of air to all Mistress Nicholl's cattle.It was not likely, Bob thought, they would be inany hurry to change back again."

"Well, thereare men," murmured Aunt Dorothy,"who are as harmless as doves, and there are womenwho are as wise as serpents. And the less the twomeet the better. I don't care a rush who feedsPlacidia's cows; but it is almost more than I canbear that she thinks no one sees through herschemes."

But Placidia had triumphed. And the parsonagecows never needed any further change of residence.

It irks me somewhat to intertwine these roughdark threads with the story of those so dear to me,but the whole would drop into unmeaningnesswithout them. Placidia and Mr. Nicholls mademany a calumny of the enemy's comprehensible tome. For in later days it became the fashion toassert that characters of that stamp formed the stapleof our Commonwealth men and women. Charactersof this stamp win Naseby and Worcester! savethe persecuted Vaudois! make England the reverenceof the world! conceive the "Pilgrim's Progress,"the "Areopagitica," and the "Living Temple!"sacrifice two thousand livings for consciencesake!

No! Pharisees, doubtless, there were among us,as, alas, doubtless there is the root of Pharisaismwithin us. But they were of the make of Saulthe disciple of Gamaliel, not of those who tithedthe "mint, anise, and cummin."

At first it seemed to me that Placidia's "Gospel"was more likely to be fulfilled in Roger's case thanhis own forebodings.

Good seemed to come out of that hasty act ofhis rather than evil. The feeling he, usually soself-repressing, had shown about Sir Launcelot, revealedhim in a new light to Lady Lucy.

"I thought him rather stony, I must confess," shesaid; "but now I see it was only a little of yourPuritan ice, if I may say so without offence; andthat there is an ocean of feeling below. My dear,now all has ended well, he really must not take itso much to heart. He has grown too grave. Wecannot have precisely the same standard for youngmen, with all their temptations and strong passions,as for sweet innocent girls sheltered tenderly inhomes, with our softer natures. I should alwayswish to be severe to myself. But young men; ah,my child, the king is a good man, but if you hadseen a little even of our Court, you would thinkRoger an angel."

Compared with Sir Launcelot, I most sincerelybelieved he was. But this double standard wasunknown in our Puritan home. One law ofrighteousness, and purity, and goodness we knew, andonly one, for man and woman. And in this I learnedto think Aunt Dorothy's grimmest sternness morepitiful than Lady Lucy's pity. I do not wish to setdown what seemed to me Lady Lucy's mistakesto any sect or any doctrine. In theory all Christiansects are agreed as to the moral standard. But Ibelieve in my heart it was the high moral standardset up, in those days, chiefly (never only) in ourPuritan homes, which will be the salvation ofEngland, if ever that pest-house, called the Court,is to be cleansed, and if England ever is to besaved.

Lady Lucy's religion was one of tender, devotionalemotions, minute ceremonial, and gorgeousritual. When braced up by Christian principle, itwas beautiful and attractive. The Puritan religionwas one of principle and doctrine. When inspiredby Divine love, it was gloriously deep and strong.

Meantime, with Sir Walter and his boys, Rogerhad manifestly risen many degrees by his "spiritedconduct." Sir Launcelot's jests, they admitted,could bite, and it was just as well he should have alesson, though rather a severe one.

Sir Launcelot himself, moreover, took a far differentdemeanour towards Roger. "Saints with thatamount of fire in their temper," he observed,"might be dangerous, but were certainly not despicable."

And as to Lettice, whose moral code was chivalrousrather than Scriptural, and to whom generositywas a far more admirable virtue than justice, andhonour a more glorious thing than duty, she saidcandidly she was delighted Roger had lost his temperfor once, just to show every one how much heartand spirit he had.

"You and I knew what he was, Olive," said she;"but I wanted the rest to feel it too."

Firstly, in the relative position of Roger and SirLauncelot. Deeds of violence inevitably place theone who does them morally below the one whosuffers. There had been a real honour to Roger in SirLauncelot's previous mockery; there was a realdishonour in the assumption he now made that Rogerstood on his own level. Moreover, Roger's owngenerous self-reproach deprived him of the powerof retort.

And secondly (but chiefly), in Lettice's alteredfeeling about Sir Launcelot. Roger never spoke ofhim; but now that he had recovered, I felt thatI could not forget how, by Lettice's ownaccount, he had provoked the blow; nor could I seethat the fact of his having received a blow whichhe had provoked in any way made his characterdifferent from what it had been. Many debates wehad on the subject, for we met often during thoseweeks—those weeks of winter and early spring,when the whole nation was in suspense about LordStrafford's trial, watching during the ploughingand sowing of the year the solemn reaping of theharvest he had sown. One of these debates inparticular I remember, because of the way in which itclosed.

It was on Thursday, the 13th of May (1641). Wehad met in the wood by the Lady Well. Thereseemed a marvellous melody that day in the musicof the little spring, as it bubbled up into its stonetrough, and echoed back from the stone roof of thelittle sacred cell the monks had lovingly made forit seven hundred years ago. The inscription couldstill be read on the front:—

"Ut jucundas cervus undas
Æstuans desiderat,
Sic ad rivum Dei vivum
Mens fidelis properat."

"It is as if all the bells in fairy-land wereringing," said she at length, softly; "only hear howthe soft peals rise and fall, and go and come, andhow one sound drops into another, and blends withit, and flows away and comes back, and meets thenext, until there is no following them."

"Then," said I, "there must have been choirs andchurch-bells in fairy-land, for there is surelysomething sad and sacred in the sound. It sounds to melike those bells the legends tell us of, buriedbeneath the sea, tolling up to us from far beneath thedark waters of the past."

Then Lettice fastened back her long hair, andstooped down and drank of the crystal water,bathing her face as she drank.

"Those Israelitish soldiers understood how toenjoy water," said she, rising from her draught."That is delicious."

For we were tired and thirsty with gatheringlapfuls of the blue-bells, of which the woods werefull.

As she stood, her moist parted lips, the rich glowon her cheeks, her eyes dancing with life, her armsfull of flowers, she said,—

"It never seems enough to look at the beautifulworld, Olive. I seem to want another sense for it.I want to drink of it like this spring; to take it tomy heart, as I do these flowers. And I supposethat is why I delight to gather them, just as whenI was a little child. Do you understand?"

"I suppose we do want to get nearer, Lettice," Isaid; "we want to drink of the Fountain. Wewant to rest on the Heart."

"Do you think that is what this strange unsatisfiedlonging means," said she, "which all great joysand all very beautiful things give me?"

"What life there is everywhere! Everythingseems filled too full of joy, and brimming over—thebirds into songs, the fields into flowers, and thetrees into leaves, the oldest and gayest of them.And I feel just like them all, Olive. On such amorning one must love every one and everything,altogether regardless of their being lovable, just forthe sake of loving. Olive," she added, with one ofher sudden turns of thought, "to-day you mustforgive Sir Launcelot from the very bottom of yourheart, once for all."

"Oh, Lettice," said I, "I do forgive him, I reallythink I did, long since; at least for everything buthis forgiving Roger in that gracious way, as ifRoger had nothing to forgive him. I have forgivenhim, but I cannot think him good."

"Ungenerous!" said she, half in jest and half inearnest; "you ought to think every one good onsuch a morning as this. Besides, Sir Launcelotalways speaks so kindly and generously of you: hesays you are goodness itself."

"I cannot think what is not true, just because thesun shines and the birds sing," said I, "and Icertainly cannot think any one good because they callme good, or goodness itself. Howcan I, Lettice?How can I believe a thing because I wish to believe it?"

"Truth, truth!" said she, a little petulantly"truth and duty, and right and wrong, I wishthose cold words were not so often on your lips.There are others so much warmer and morebeautiful—nobleness and generosity, and loyalty anddevotion, those are the things I love. Yours is aworld of daylight, Olive. I like sunshine, glowingmorning and evening like rubies and opals, veilingthe distance at noon with its own glorious haze. Ihate always to see everything exactly as it is, evenbeautiful things; and ugly things I never will see,if I can help it."

"I love to see everything exactly as it is," said I;"I want, and I pray, to see everything as it is. Andin the end I am sure that is the way to see the realbeauty of everything in the world. For God hasmade it, and not the devil. And therefore we neednever be afraid to look into things. And I shallalways think truth and duty the most beautifulwords in the world."

"Very pretty!" said she perversely, "and underall those beautiful words you bury the fact that youwill never forgive poor Sir Launcelot."

"I have long forgiven him," said I; "but I cannotthink him good, if I tried for ever, until he is.I cannot help thinking of poor little Cicely,Gammer Grindle's grandchild, wandering lost in London."

"Hush, Olive, hush," said she passionately, "thatis ungenerous and unkind. I will not listen tovillage gossip. My Mother says we must not be harshin judging those whose temptations we cannotestimate. But she means to do all she can in Londonto help poor Cicely."

"Oh, Lettice," said I, "it is not a question ofmore or less pity, but of who needs our pity most."

"You are all alike," she rejoined; "yet I loveyou all, and I love you, Olive, dearly. Withoutyour Puritan training, Olive, you and Roger wouldhave been the best people and the pleasantest inthe world; but as my Mother says, all these severedoctrines about law, and justice, and conscience, domake people harsh in judging others, and bitter inresenting wrong."

I could say no more. She had taken refuge underthe shadow of Roger's hasty act, and the argumentwas closed.

When we reached Davenant Hall an unusualcrowd was gathered at the front door—a silenteager throng—around a horseman whose horse wascovered with foam, from the speed with which hehad come. It was Harry Davenant. And thetidings he brought were that on yesterday morningLord Strafford had been beheaded on Tower Hill,a hundred thousand people gathered there to see;but through all the silent multitude neither sighsof sympathy nor sounds of triumph.

The servants silently dispersed. Harry's horsewas led to the stables, and we went in with LadyLucy, Sir Walter, and Sir Launcelot, into the hall.

"That is what they were doing in London whilewe were gathering blue-bells!" said Lettice. Andshe threw her flowers on the stone floor. "I willnever gather any more."

She buried her face in her hands and burst intotears—"Cruel, cruel," she said, "of the king, of thequeen, to let him die."

"It was the Parliament which hunted him todeath," said Harry, bitterly. "And the king didtry to save him."

"The Parliament is wicked, and hated him, andI don't care what they did," said Lettice, lookingup with a flushed face; "but the king, oh, Mother,you said the king would never let Lord Strafforddie. What is the use of being a king if kings canonlytry to do things like other people. I thoughtkings coulddo the things they thought right. Hewas faithful to the king, was he not, Mother?"

"A devoted servant to the king Lord Straffordsurely was," said Lady Lucy, "whether a goodcounsellor or no. I did not think the king wouldhave given him up. Did no one plead for him?"she asked.

"He pleaded with a wonderful eloquence forhimself," said Harry Davenant, "that might well-nighhave turned the heads of his bitterest enemies,and did win the hearts of every one who heardhim."

"The king called his privy council together,"said Harry Davenant, "last Sunday, when the billof attainder had passed through the Lords andCommons, and said he had doubts and scruples aboutassenting to it, and asked their advice. Dr. Juxon,Bishop of London, counselled him never to consentto the shedding of what he believed innocent blood.But the rest of the council advised him to yield.— Andthe king yielded."

"Some people," he continued, "think the kingwas justified by a letter the earl wrote him on theTuesday before, wherein he offered his life in thisworld to the king with all cheerfulness; nay, evencounselled the sacrifice to reconcile him to hispeople, saying, 'To a willing man there is no injurydone.'"

"It is said the earl scarcely believed it when heheard it, and that he laid his hand on his heart andexclaimed, 'Put not your trust in princes.'"

"And well he might!" exclaimed Lettice, hertears dried by the fire of her indignation.

"The king made another effort to save him,"Harry continued; "he wrote to the Lordsrecommending imprisonment instead of death; and atthe end of the letter he added a postscript: 'If hemust die, it were charity to relieve him tillSaturday.'"

"A miserable, cold request!" exclaimed Lettice,vehemently; "more cruel than the sentence."

"I would have expected this from his father,"murmured Sir Walter, "but not from the king." Thenturning from a painful subject, he added,"The earl died bravely, no doubt."

"As he passed the windows of the chamber whereArchbishop Laud was, he bowed to receive hisblessing, and he said, 'Farewell, my lord, Godprotect your innocence.' He marched to the TowerHill more with the bearing of a general leading hisarmy, than a sentenced man moving to the scaffold.At the Tower Gate the lieutenant desired him totake coach, fearing the violence of the people, butthe earl refused: 'I dare look death in the face,'said he, 'and I hope the people do. Have you acare I do not escape, and I care not how I die,whether by the hand of the executioner or by themadness of the people. If that give them bettercontent, it is all one to me.' And so, after protestinghis innocence, saying he forgave all the world,and sending a few affectionate words to his wifeand four children, he laid his head on the block.There was no base triumphing in the crowd, Iwill say that for them; they behaved like Englishmen.The earl fell in silence. But in the eveningthe brutish populace cried out in exultation, 'Hishead is off! his head is off!' and the city wasblazing with bonfires. The people feel they havegained the first step in a victory. The Court thinks ithas made the furthermost step in concession, andthat thenceforward all must be peace. Would toheaven the king and the Court might be right; butit is hard to say."

It was dusk before all this converse was endedand I left the Hall. Harry Davenant persisted inguarding me across the fields to Netherby, until wecame to the high road close to the house. Therehe took leave.

"Heaven forbid," he replied; "but I had betternot come, not to-day. The fall of the earl scarcelymeans the same thing in your home as in ours."

"There will be no mean triumphing over LordStrafford's death at Netherby," I said, with someindignation.

"There will be no low, or ungenerous, or meanthing said by one of the Draytons!" he said,warmly. "But I had better not see Mr. Drayton thisevening."

And waving his plumed hat, he vaulted over thestile; and I felt he was right. Looking back at theturn leading to the house, I saw he was watchingme from the field. But as I turned the corner andcame in sight of the gables of the Manor, a forebodingcame on me, as of siftings and severings tocome—of a few pebbles, or a few rushes, gentlygiving the slightest turn to the course of the twolittle trickling springs, and their waters flowing,ever after, by different banks, and falling at lastinto the oceans which wash the shores of oppositeworlds. But not Lettice, never Lettice; the wholeworld, I thought, should be no barrier to sever usfrom Lettice! Nor should all the political orecclesiastical differences in the world ever check orchill the current of our love and reverence to all thetrue, and brave, and just, and good, and godly.For politics, even ecclesiastical politics, are of time;but truth, and courage, and justice, and goodness,and godliness, are of God, and are eternal.

CHAPTER VI.

The six mouths of the year 1641, fromearly May till November, shine back onme beyond the stormy years which partthem from us, like a meadow brightwith dew and sunshine on the edge of a dark andheaving sea. Beyond those months, in the furtherdistance, stretches the dim Eden of childhood, withits legends and its mysteries, and its gates ofParadise scarcely closed. Bordering them, on thefurther side, glooms the broad shadow of Roger'stemptation and bitter repentance. On the hitherside heaves the great intervening sea of civil war.But through all, that little sunny space beams out,peaceful, as if no stormy waves beat against it;distinct, as if no long space of life parted it fromus.

Did I say childhood was the Eden? Then youthis the "garden planted eastward in Eden," theParadise which "the Lord God plants" in the outset ofthe dullest or stormiest life, where the river whichcompasseth the land flows over golden sands, "andthe gold of that land is good." Not childhood,surely, but early youth, "the youth of youth," isthe golden age of life. Childhood is the twilight.Youth is the beautiful dawn. Childhood is thedream and the struggling out of it; youth is theconscious, joyful waking. If childhood has its fairyrobes spun out of every gossamer, its fairy treasuresin every leaf; it has also its eerie terrors woven ofthe twilight shadows, its overwhelming torrents ofsorrow having their fountains in an April shower,as it steps uncertainly through the unknown world.And neither its joys, nor its sorrows, nor its terrors,nor its treasures, can it utter.

Childhood is the dim Colchis where the GoldenFleece lies hidden; youth is the Jason that bringsthence the "Argosy." Childhood is the sweetshadowy Hesperides, lying dreamily in the tropicsunshine, where the golden fruit ripens silentlyamong the dark and glossy leaves. Youth is the Herowho penetrates the garden and makes it alive withhuman music, and wins the fruit and bears it forthinto the free wide world. If childhood is thegolden age, youth is the heroic age, when the heartbeats high with the first consciousness of power,and the first stir of half-conscious hopes; when theearth lies before us as a field of glorious adventure,and the heaven spreads above us a space forboundless flight; before we have learned how mixedearth's armies are, how slow the conquests of truth;how seldom we can fight any battle here withoutwounding some we would fain succour; or win anyvictory in which some things precious as thoseborne aloft before us in triumph, are not trailed inthe dust behind us, dishonoured and lost.

Not that the most vivid and golden hopes ofyouth are delusions. God forbid that I shouldblaspheme His writing on the heart by thinking sofor an instant! It is but that the Omniscient, whoknows the glorious End that is to be, sets us inyouth on the mountain-tops to breathe the pure airof heaven, foreshortening the intervening distancefrom these heights of hope and by its sunny haze,as eternity foreshortens it to Him; that, forgettingthe things that are behind, and overspanning thethings that are between, every brave and trustingheart may go down into the battle-field strong inthe promise of the End, of the Triumph of Truththat shall yet surely be, and of the Kingdom ofRighteousness that shall one day surely come.

Such, at least, was youth to us; to Lettice Davenant,and Roger, and me. And, looking back, thissunny time of youth seems all gathered up intothose six months before the beginning of the CivilWar.

For we were continually meeting through thatsummer; and the land was quiet. At least so itseemed to us at Netherby.

The king had granted Triennial Parliaments; hadgranted that this Parliament should never bedissolved like its predecessors by his arbitrary will,but only with its own consent; had seemed, indeed,ready to grant anything. Strafford, the strong propof his despotism, had fallen; Archbishop Laud, hisinstigator to all the petty irritations of tyranny,which had well-nigh driven the nation mad, layhelpless in the Tower; the unjust judges, who haddecreed the evil decrees about ship-money, had fled,disgraced, beyond the seas. What then might notbe hoped, if not from the king's active good-will, atleast from his passive consent? There had, indeed,been an attempt to bring Pym and Hampden intothe royal councils, and if this had not quite succeeded,at least the patriot St. John was solicitor-general.

During much of the summer, after assenting toeverything the Parliament proposed, the kingsojourned in Scotland. It was true that the reportsthat reached us thence were not altogethersatisfactory. There were rumours of army-plotsencouraged in the highest quarters; rumours of some darkplot called "The Incident," intending treacheryagainst Argyle and others; of His Majesty goingwith five hundred armed men to the ScottishParliament, to the great offence of all Edinburgh;rumours that the English Parliament, hearing of"The Incident," had demanded a guard againstsimilar outrages, if any "flagitious persons" shouldattempt them.

But for the most part, hope predominated overfear with us at Netherby. One thing was certain;a Parliament alive to every rumour stood on guardfor the nation at St. Stephen's, vowed together bya solemn "Protestation" to do or suffer oughtrather than yield our ancient rights and liberties,and until the note of warning came thence, thenation might peacefully pursue its daily work; notasleep, indeed, and with arms not out of reach, butfor the present called not to contend, but to workand wait.

There was just enough of stir in the air, and ofstorm in the sky, to quicken every movement withoutimpeding it; to take all languor out of leisure,to make moments of intercourse more precious, andfriendships ripen more quickly.

We were still one nation, we owned one law, onethrone, one national council. We were still onenational Church, gathering weekly in one house ofprayer; kneeling, at least at Easter, although withsome scruples, around one Holy Table; togetherconfessing ourselves to have "gone astray like lostsheep;" together giving thanks for our "creationand redemption;" kneeling reverently, and withone voice saying, "Our Father which art in heaven;"together standing as confessors of one Catholicfaith, and with one voice repeating the ancientcreeds; together praying (in the words ordered inKing James' reign) for our sovereign lord KingCharles, and (in the form his own reign firstappointed) for the High Court of Parliament, underhim assembled.

There were indeed words and postures and vestmentswhich were not to the liking of all, which tosome were signs of irritating defeat and to othersof petty triumph; but in general—especially sincethe Book of Sports had been silenced, andArchbishop Laud had been kept quiet (and Mr. Nichollshad forsaken his more novel practices)—there wasa strong tide of truth and devotion in the ancientservices, which swept all true and devout heartsalong with it.

And besides, there was, at this period, with someof the Puritans, a hope of peacefully affecting someslight further reformation, so that even AuntDorothy was less controversial than usual; contentingherself with an occasional warning against goingdown to Egypt for horses, or against Achans in thecamp, and an occasional hope that, while his wordswere smoother than butter, the enemy had not warin his heart. But she did not distinctly explainwhether by these Achans and Egyptian cavalry shemeant Mr. Nicholls, Placidia, Lady Lucy, Letticeand the king; or, on the other hand, the little band ofSeparatists or Brownists whom we met from timeto time coming from their worship in a cottage onthe outskirts of the village, against whom sheconsidered my Father not a little remiss in hismagisterial duty. These apparently inoffensive peoplewere suspected of Anabaptist tendencies. AuntGretel even associated them in her own mind withsome very dangerous characters of the same nameat Münster. It was, indeed, the utmost stretch ofher toleration, to connive at our Bob and Tib'soccasional attendance at their assemblies; but theconsideration of Tib's discreet years, and Bob'sdiscreet character, and Aunt Dorothy's somewhatindiscreet zeal, had hitherto induced her to do so,her conscience being further fortified by my Father'ssolemn promise to bring these sectaries to justice ifever they showed the slightest tendency towardspolygamy or homicide. They consisted chiefly ofsmall freeholders and independent hand-workers,the tailor, the village carpenter, and at the head,Job Forster, the blacksmith; Tib and Bob were, Ithink, the only household servants among them.They were few, poor, and quiet, doing nothing attheir meetings, it seemed, but read the Bible, listento one reading or explaining it, and praying: someamong them having scruples as to whether it mightnot be a carnal indulgence to sing hymns.Occasionally they were strengthened by the visit of apreacher of their way of thinking from Suffolk,where the sect was more numerous. They weregood to each other; not hurtful to any one else.They would certainly, every one of them, have diedor gone into destitute exile for the minutest scrupleof their belief or disbelief, being satisfied that everythread of the broidered work of their tabernaclewas as divinely ordered as the tables of the lawwritten with the finger of God. But as yet therewas nothing to show what their enthusiasm woulddo when it was enkindled to action, instead ofsmouldering in passive endurance; nothing to showwhat germs of vigorous life lay dormant in thatlittle company, each holding his commission, as hebelieved, direct from God. Yet from these, andsuch as these, at the touch of Oliver Cromwell,sprang into life that crop of Ironsides terrible asSamsons, chaste as Sir Galahad, unyielding asElijah before the threats of Jezebel, unsparing asElijah with the prophets of Jezebel on Carmel,which overthrew power after power in the state;made England the greatest power in the world;and if the only human hand that could commandit had been immortal, might have ruled Englandand the world to this day.

So many hidden germs of life lie around us undevelopedeverywhere. In the primeval forests of this,our New England, when the pines are felled, asuccession of oaks springs up self-sown in their stead.If the pines had not been felled what would havebecome of the acorns? Would they have perished,or waited dormant through the ages, till their hourshould come?

But I am creeping back to Roger's ancient puzzleof Necessity, wherewith he bewildered me of oldas we sat in the apple-tree at Netherby.

And after all, however these things be, it is onlythe king's ministers that are changed in the universalgovernment of the nations. The King neverdies.

Meantime these sectaries were the only outwardschism in the unity of the Church and Nation, asrepresented at Netherby. Korahs, Dathans, andAbirams, Aunt Dorothy called them, or (when shewas most displeased) "Anabaptists," and would(theoretically) have liked them to be madeexamples of in some striking and uncomfortable way;harmless enthusiasts my Father called them, and letthem alone; well-meaning persons with dangeroustendencies, Aunt Gretel considered them, and madethem possets and broth when they were ill. InLady Lucy's eyes they were misguided schismatics;in Sir Walter's, self-conceited fools; in HarryDavenant's, vulgar fanatics. Of all our circle, I thinkjnone cared to find out what they really meant andwanted, except Roger, who, especially after his greattrouble, had always the most earnest desire not tomisjudge any one; or, indeed, to judge any one asfrom a judgment-seat above them. And Roger saidthey believed they had found God, and were livingin His Presence, as truly as Moses, or Elijah, or anyto whom He appeared of old, which made everythingelse seem to them infinitely small in comparison;that they wanted, above all things, to do whatGod commanded, whenever they knew what it was,which made every homeliest duty on the waytowards that end seem to them part of the "serviceof the sanctuary," any mountain of difficulty butas the small dust of the balance; every obstacle asthe chaff before the whirlwind. Convictions whichgave an invincible power of endurance, and couldgive a tremendous force of achievement, as eventsproved.

To this better estimate of them, Roger was, nodoubt, partly led by his friendship for Job Forster.Job, indeed, through the whole of these six months,so calm and full of hope to us at Netherby,continued to forebode storms. "The weather wasbrewed," he said, "on the hills and by the sea; and folkswho were bred on the flats, out of sight of sea andhills, and who only knew one-half of the world,could not reasonably be expected to understand thesigns of the sky. The Lord, in his belief, had plentyof work to do on his anvil yet, before the swordswere beaten into ploughshares and the spears intopruning-hooks. It was more likely theploughshares would have to be beaten into swords, andpriming-hooks into spears."

And the village coulters, spades, and mattocks,received from Job's hammer treatment all the morevigorous on account of the warlike figures theysupplied.

Moreover, Rachel, his wife, looking out from herchamber-window one stormy night across the Fens,had seen wonders in the heavens, black-plumedclouds, marshalled like armies, rolling far away tothe east, till the rising sun smote them to ablood-red; while high above, from behind these, onewhite-winged arm, as of an archangel swept acrossthe sky untouched by the red glow of battle, raisedmajestically, as if to warn or to smite.

"There is something terrible going on somewhere,"she had said, "or else something terrible tocome."

And Job, to whom Rachel's words had always atender sacredness in them, woven of the oldreverence of our northern race for the prophet-woman;of sacred memories of the inspired songs of Deborahand Hannah, interpreted by his belief that thepeople of the Bible were not exceptional buttypical; and of his own strong love for her—believedRachel's visions with entire unconsciousness howmuch they were reflections of his own convictions."How," he would say, "could a feeble creaturelike her, nurtured and cherished like a babe, andbusy all her life in naught but enduring sicknessesor doing kindnesses, know aught of wars andbattlefields, unless it was of the Lord?" So Jobforeboded, and we hoped, and the summer monthspassed on.

Scarcely a day passed on which we and the Davenantsdid not meet, especially Roger, and Lettice,and I; for Roger had taken his degree, and havingoverworked at it, was constrained to be idle for awhile; and the boy Davenants were most of thetime in London. At church, at the Hall, at theManor, riding, coursing, hay-making, nutting,boating on the Mere; on rainy days, hunting outwonderful old illuminated manuscripts in Sir Walter'slibrary, or by the organ in my Father's, singingglees and madrigals; making essays at Italian poetry,generally resulting in translations, metrical orotherwise, by Roger, for Lettice's benefit. Letticereigning in all things, by a thousand indisputableroyal rights; as pupil; as sovereign lady; as theyoungest; as the most adventurous; as the mosttimid; by right of her need of care, and herclinging to protection; by right of minority, she beingone, and we two; by right of her true constancyand her little seeming ficklenesses; by right of herbrilliant, ever-changing beauty, and all hernameless, sweet, tyrannical, winning, willful ways; byright of all her generous self-forgetfulness, anddelight to give pleasure; and firstly and lastly, byright of the subtle power which, through all thesecharms, stole into Roger's heart, and took possessionof it, unchallenged and unresisted, then and forever.

We spoke little of politics. Lettice never hadany, except loyalty to the king; and at this timeher loyalty was sorely tried by reason of herperplexity and distress at what seemed to her theungenerous desertion of Strafford in his need.

There were no forbidden topics between us.There was one, indeed, which by tacit mutualconsent we always avoided, and that was all thatconcerned Sir Launcelot Trevor. Lettice, alwaysscenting from afar the least symptom of what couldpain, never approached what had been the cause ofso much anguish to Roger; and me she never freedfrom the suspicion of a certain sisterly injustice inmy sentiments towards my brother's enemy. Buta very insignificant and unnecessary chamber indeedwas this to be locked out of the palace of delightsthrough which we three roamed at will together.Nor can I remember one pang of vexation at myown falling from the first place to the second inRoger's thoughts. If I had not loved Lettice onmy own account as I did, there was nothing inRoger's love for her that could have sown onemiserable seed of jealousy in my heart. If he loved hermost, he was more to me than ever before. Thereflection of his tender reverence for her fell like aglory on all women for her sake. He was more toall for being most to her. Mean calculations ofmore or less, better or best, could not enter intocomparison in affections stamped with such a sweetdiversity. All true love expands, not narrows;strengthens, not weakens; anoints the eyes witheye-salve, not blinds; opens the heart, and opensthe world, and transfigures the universe into anenchanted palace and treasure-house of joys, simplyby giving the key to unlock its chambers, and thevision to see its treasures.

This was the innermost heart of the joy of thoseour halcyon days, that Roger and Lettice and Iwere together. We three made for ourselves ournew Atlantis. We should have made it equally inthe dingiest street of London city. Only, there thejoy within us would have had to transform ourworld into a paradise. At Netherby, riding overthe fields with the fresh air in our faces, or roamingthe musical woods, or skimming the Mere whileRoger rowed, and dipping our hands in the coolwaters, or talking endlessly on the fragrant gardenterraces of the Manor and the Hall, it had not totransform, only to translate.

Outside this inner world of our own lay a brightand friendly world all around us. First, ourFather, sweet Lady Lucy, and Aunt Gretel—scarcelyindeed outside, except by the fact of their not quiteunderstanding what we had within, regarding us,as they fondly did, as dear happy children not yetout of our paradise of childhood; next Aunt Dorothy,Job Forster, and Rachel, guarding us as fondly,though anxiously, as on the unconscious eve ofencounter with our dragons and leviathans; andbeyond, the village, of which we were the children;the country, which was our mother; the world, ofwhich we were the heirs. For to us in those daysthere were no harassing Philistines, no crushingBabylon; no Egyptians behind, nor Red Sea before.The world was to be conquered, but not as a prostratefoe, rather as a willing tributary to Truth andRight. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles wereto bring presents; Sheba and Seba were to offergifts. The wilderness and the solitary place wereto be glad for us, and the desert was to rejoice andblossom as the rose.

Meanwhile Lady Lucy came back to her old placein my heart. Her sweet motherliness seemed tobrood like the wings of a dove over our wholehappy world.

Harry Davenant came more than once to theHall, and stayed a few days, to Lady Lucy's perfectcontent, and entered into our pursuits as keenlyas any of us. Only with him there was always anundertone of sadness, a despondency about thecountry and the world, a bitterness about the times,a slight cynicism about men and women, inevitable,perhaps, to a noble spirit like his, which (as it seemsto me) has lost its way, and strayed into thebackward current, contrary to all the generous forwardmovements of the age; but strongly contrastedwith the steadfast, hopeful temper no dangercould daunt and no defeat could damp, whichcharacterized the nobler spirits on the patriot side.The noble Sir Bevil Grenvill had bitter thoughts ofhis contemporaries; the generous Lord Falklandcraved for peace and welcomed death. Eliot, Pym,Hampden, Cromwell, Milton, looked for liberty;believed in the triumph of truth; thought Englandworth fighting for, living for, if needful, dying for;they braved death indeed like heroes, they met itlike Christians, but they did not long for it like mensick and hopeless of the world. If God had willedit so, they had rather have lived on, because of thegreat hopes that inspired them, because theybelieved that not fate nor the devil were at the heartof the world, or at the head of the nations; butGod.

Yet about such men as Harry Davenant therewas an inexpressible fascination. There is somethingthat irresistibly touches the heart in heroismwhich, like Hector's of Troy, is nourished, not byhope, but by duty; which sacrifices self in a causewhich it believes no courage and no sacrifice canmake victorious, and bates no jot of heart when allhope has fled.

And to me he was always so gentle a friend.We had so many things in common; our love forhis Mother, his reverence for my Father's goodness,justice, and wisdom; his generous appreciation ofRoger; a certain protecting, shielding tendernesswe both had for Lettice, who was, indeed, a creatureso tender, and dependent, and willful, so likelyto rush into trouble, so sure to feel it, that nowomanly heart could help feeling motherlike towardher.

Yet there always seemed a kind of half-acknowledgedbarrier between us, even from the first, moredistinctly acknowledged afterwards, which gave astrange mixture of frankness and reserve, ofnearness and separation, to our intercourse; wherein,perhaps, lay something of its charm.

And across this world of ours flashed from timeto time during those months lofty visions ofnobleness and wisdom from other spheres; especiallyduring the last six weeks when the Parliament wasin recess, and many a worthy head found a night'sshelter in the guest-chamber at Netherby.

Mr. Hampden was in Scotland as ParliamentaryCommissioner, keeping watch over the king;Mr. Pym, at his lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, keepingguard for the nation. But Mr. Cromwell wenthome in the recess to his family at Ely, and spentsome hours with us on his way back to London.He was forty-two years old then, my Father said,and his hair was not without some tinge of gray;tall, all but six feet in stature, and firmly knit.Many things seemed to lie hidden in the depths ofhis grave eyes; a subdued fire of temper flashingforth at times sufficiently to show that at the heartof this gravity lay not ice but fire; a heartyhumour, as of a soul at liberty, grasping its purposefirmly enough to be able to give it play—keen todescry likenesses in things unlike, inner differencesin things similar, absurdities in things decorous,and the meaning of men and things in generalthrough all seemings. Yet withal, capacities andtraces of heart-deep sorrow, as of one who hadlooked into the depths on many sides and found themunfathomable. Moreover, above all, his were eyeswhich saw; not merely windows through whichyou looked into the soul. Aunt Gretel said therewas a look in him which made her think of a portraitof Dr. Luther which she had seen in her youth.He loved music, too, which was another resemblanceto Dr. Luther. He was always kind to uschildren, and now he spoke fondly of his two "littlewenches" at home—Bridget (afterwards MistressIreton), a little beyond my age, and Elizabeth(Mistress Claypole), then about eleven, his dearly-loveddaughter; and the two blithe little ones, Mary andFrances, about five and three. Methought his eyesrested with a sorrowful yearning on Roger; andmy Father told us, after he left, he had only twoyears before, in May, buried his eldest son Robert,about nineteen, which was Roger's age. This sonwas buried far from home, at Felsted Church inEssex; a youth whose promise had been so greatthat the parson of the parish where he died hadinserted a record of him in the parish register, whichreads like a fond epitaph amidst the dry unbrokenlist of names and dates. Mr. Cromwell spoke alsowith much reverence of his aged mother, who dweltin his house at Ely.

Mr. Cromwell was full of a firm confidence in thefuture of the church and the country; but, like JobForster, he seemed to think there was much to bedone and gone through before the end was gained.On his way through the village he had held someconverse with Job Forster while having his horseshod; and he said something of such men as Jobbeing the men for a Parliament army, if ever suchan army should be needed.

Whilst Job, on his part, as he told us afterwards,was deeply moved by his interview with Mr. Cromwell."He was a man," said Job, "who had beenin the depths, and had brought thence the sacredfire, which made two or three of his words worth ahundred spoken by common men."

Then towards the close of that happy time therewas one evening in October which lingers on mymemory as its golden sunset lingered on themany-coloured autumn woods.

We were standing on the terrace at Netherby,overlooking the orchard, Roger, Lettice, and I, inthe fading light; Lettice twining some water-liliesRoger had just gathered from the pond. Throughthe embayed window of the wainscoted parlour,which stood open, poured forth the music of myFather's organ, in chords rich and changing asthe colours of the sunset on wood, and meadow, andMere.

Mr. John Milton was the musician, and as theintertwined harmonies flowed from his hands

"In linked sweetness long drawn out,
His melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisted all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony."

"Dead things with imbreathèd sense, able to pierce,
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To Him that sits thereon."—

the lilies dropped from Lettice's fingers, and shesat like the statue of a listening nymph; the knittingfell from Aunt Gretel's lap, and the tears cameinto her eyes, and, thinking of my mother, shemurmured "Magdalene!" Roger and I were leaningon the window-sill, and all of us were sounconscious of anything present, that Lady Lucy hadadvanced from the other end of the terrace nearenough to touch me on the arm without my hearinga footstep.

By her side stood a courtly-looking young clergyman,with dark hair flowing from under his velvetcap, and dark, meditative eyes, yet with much lightof smiles hidden in them, like dew in violets. Himshe introduced as "Dr. Taylor, one of His Majesty'schaplains." He was not yet eight-and-twenty yearsof age, but was in mourning for his first wife, butlately dead.

Mr. Milton joined us soon with my Father. Hewas a few years older than Dr. Taylor, but inappearance much more youthful; with his brownun-Puritan love-locks, his short stature, his facedetermined, almost to severity, yet delicate as a beautifulwoman's.

And then between these two, while we listened,ensued an hour's converse, like the antiphons of someheavenly choir.

Names of ancient heroes and philosophers—Egyptian,Assyrian, Greek, Latin—dropped fromtheir lips like household words. Until at last theyrose into a chorus in praise of liberty, of conscience,and of thought; Dr. Taylor, I thought, basing hisargument more on the dimness of human vision, andMr. Milton on the inherent and victorious might oftruth. Dr. Taylor pleading for a charitabletolerance for error, Mr. Milton for a glorious freedomfor truth; the which converse I often recalled when,in after years, we read the Liberty of Prophesyingby the one, and the Liberty of Printing by theother.

As they spoke, the glory faded from the sky andthe golden autumnal woods, and when they ceased,and we stepped from the terrace into the gloom ofthe dark wainscoted parlour, it seemed to me as ifwe had stepped out of a fragrant and melodiouselysium into a farm-yard, so homely and unmeaning,like the cacklings or lowings of animals, did allcommon discourse seem afterwards.

The next day, when Mr. Milton had left us, andwe were speaking together of this discourse, AuntGretel said it was like beautiful music, only, beingmostly in a kind of Latin, was, of course, beyondher comprehension. Aunt Dorothy only consoledherself for what she regarded as the dangerouslicence of their conclusions, by the thought that theirpath to them was too fantastic and fine for anycommon mortals to tread. And my Father saidafterwards that it seemed to him as if Dr. Taylor'slearning and fancy hung around his reason like thejewelled state-trappings of a royal palfrey; youwondered how his wit could move so nimbly undersuch a weight of ornament; whilst Mr. Milton'slearning and imagination were like wings to thestrong Pegasus of his wisdom, only helping him tosoar. When Dr. Taylor alluded to the lore ofthe ancients, it seemed like a treasury wherewithto adorn his fancies or to wing his airy shafts. Butto Mr. Milton it seemed an armory common to himand to the wise men of whom he spoke, and towhich he had as free access as they; to draw thenceweapons for his warfare and theirs, and to addthereto for the generations to come.

Yet brilliant and glowing as their speech was,Roger would have it that Mr. Cromwell's brief andrugged words had in them more of the red heatthat fuses the weapons wherewith the great battlesof life are fought. For we spoke often of thatevening, Roger, and Lettice, and I, in the few shortdays that remained of our golden age of peace.

Scarcely a fortnight after that evening at Netherby,tidings of the Irish massacre thrilled throughall the land with one shudder of horror and helplessindignation for the past; awakening one bitter cryfor rescue and vengeance in the future.

It was a gray and comfortless evening early inNovember when a Post spurred into the village ofNetherby, and stopped at Job Forster's forge tohave some slight repair made in the gear of hishorse.

Rachel was there immediately with a jug of alefor the weary rider and water for his horse. Thehorseman took both in silence.

"Thou art scant of greetings to-day,good-master," said Job, as he busied himself about the brokenbit, without looking in the rider's face.

But Rachel, who had caught in an instant theweight of heavy tidings on the stranger's face, laidher hand with a silencing gesture on her husband'sarm.

Then Job looked up, and meeting the horseman'seye, dropped the bit, and said abruptly,—

"Rough enough," was the reply. "A hundredthousand Protestants,* men, women, and children,surprised, and robbed, and massacred in Ireland,scarce more than a sennight agone. At morning,met with good-days and friendly looks by thePapists around them; before evening, driven fromtheir burning homes, naked and destitute, into theroads and wildernesses. Thousands murderedamidst their ruined homes; happy those who wereonly murdered, or murdered quickly; no mercy onage or sex, no memory of kindness; treachery andtorture; women and little children turning intofiends of cruelty. Dublin itself only saved by onewho gave warning the evening before. But theworst was for the women, and the little helplesstortured babes."

* This was the number commonly believed among us at thetime. Since I have heard it disputed. But that the slaughterand the atrocities were terrible, there can be no doubt.

"Softly, softly, master," said Job; for Rachel hadfallen on his shoulder fainting. "She can bear tohear any dreadful thing, or to see any dreadfulsight, if she can be of any help; but this is toomuch for her."

Gently he bore her in and laid her on the bed,and hesitated an instant what to do, not liking toleave her.

"She always seems to know whether it's me orany one else, even when she's clean gone like this,"he said; "but yet I dare not hinder the Post."

And after a moment's further pause, lifting herinto an easier position, he went out.

Sprinkling water on her face and chafing herhands, breathing on her lips and temples, as I hadseen Aunt Gretel do in such a case, I had thecomfort of soon seeing Rachel languidly open her eyes.For a moment there was a bewildered, inquiringlook in them, but quickly it gave place to amournful collectedness.

"I knew it—I knew it, Mistress Olive!" she said,"I knew something must come. But I thought thejudgment would fall on the Lord's enemies; andJob and I have been pleading with Him for mercy,even on them. I never thought the sword wouldfall on the sheep of His pasture. Least of all on thelambs," she added; "on the innocent lambs. Butmaybe, after all, that was His mercy. They are butgone home by a cruel path, poor innocents—onlygone home." Then a burst of tears came to herrelief; a neighbour came in to help; and I left to gohome without further delay.

The few minutes which I had spent at RachelForster's bedside had sufficed to gather all thevillage around the forge; women with babies in theirarms and little ones clinging to their skirts; menon their way home from the day's labour withspades and mattocks on their shoulders; the tailorneedle in hand; the miller white from the mill;women with hands full of dough from thekneading-trough; none waiting to lay aside an implement,none left hehind but the bedridden, yet none askinga question, or uttering an exclamation, as theypassed around the messenger, drinking in thehorrible details of the slaughter. Only, in the pauses,a long-drawn breath, or now and then a suppressedsob from the women.

Job meanwhile continued, as was his wont, workinghis feelings into the task he had in hand, so thatlong before the villagers were weary of listeningwhile the Post told the cruel particulars, heighteningthe excitement and deepening the silence, the bitwas mended, every weak point of hoof or harnesshad undergone Job's skillful inspection, andoffering the messenger another draught at the beer-can,he said to him in his abrupt way,—

In consideration of the urgent need of haste, thePost gave us a letter in Dr. Antony's writing toRoger, and in another minute was out of sightbeyond the turn of the village street.

A little murmur arose among the village-gossips."No need for breaking a Post short like that,goodman Forster," said the miller's wife; "sure heknows his own business best."

"What did we need to hear more, good wife?"was Job's reply. "All England has to hear it yet!Thousand of prayers have to be stirred up throughoutthe land before night. And haven't we heardenough to make this night a night of watching?Hearkening to fearful tales helps little; and talkingless. For this kind goeth not out but with prayerand fasting."

And Job turned away into his cottage. But asRoger and I hastened up the street, the village hadalready broken into little eager groups, and thewords, "the Irish Popish Army," and "the PopishQueen," came with bitter emphasis from manyvoices.

Deep was the excitement at home when webrought the terrible tidings. Dr. Antony's lettertoo dreadfully confirmed them, telling how theHouse of Commons received the news, brought inby one O'Conolly, in an awe-stricken silence; hownearly all Ulster, the head-quarters of the Protestants,was still in the hands of the insurgents; thetowns and villages in flames.

"Tilly and Magdeburg!" were the first wordsthat broke from my Father's lips. "The same strife,the same weapons, the same fiendish cruelty, in thename of the All Pitiful. If such another conflict isindeed to come, God send England weapons as goodwherewith to wage it; soldiers that can pray; and,if such can be twice in one generation, anotherGustavus!"

Fervently he pleaded that night together withthe gathered household for the robbed and bereavedsufferers in Ireland. Far into the night Roger sawthe lamp burning in his window. No doubt he hadsought Job Forster's Refuge.

But the next morning, when we came in to breakfast,he had taken down the old sword he had wornthrough the German wars; and was trying its edge.

"The good God keep us from war, Brother!"said Aunt Gretel, trembling at the thoughts thatold weapon recalled, "I was thinking we mightsearch out our stores for woolseys and linseys.They will be sure to be sending such to the poorsufferers, and they will be building orphan houses."

"Citadels have to be built and kept first!" saidmy Father. "There are times when war is as mucha work of mercy as clothing the naked and feedingthe hungry."

"But war with whom, Brother?" said Aunt Dorothy,pointedly. "It is little use lopping thebranches and sparing the tree. What has becomeof the Irish Popish army the king was so loth todismiss? Of what avail is it to smite a few poorblind fanatics, when the Popish queen and herJesuits rule in the Palace? It wearies me to theheart to hear of honest men like Mr. Hampden,Mr. Pym, and all of them impeaching Lord Straffordand imprisoning Archbishop Laud, who, I believe(poor deluded man), thought himself doing God'sservice; and yet kissing the hand that appointedLaud and Strafford, and would sign death-warrantsfor every patriot and Puritan in the kingdomto-night, if it were safe."

"Mr. Hampden, Mr. Pym, and Mr. Cromwell aredoing their best to make it not safe, Sister Dorothy,"was my Father's reply. "And meantime there ismore strength in silence than in invective."

"A Parliament of women," said Aunt Dorothy,"would have gone to the point months since, andlet the king understand what they meant."

Unusually early in the day for her, Lady Lucyappeared at the Manor, with Harry and Letticewalking beside her horse.

"Mr. Drayton," she said, "who ever could havedreamed of such tidings! The only ray of comfortis that they may help to unite our distractedcountry. There can be but one mind throughoutthe land about such deeds as these. The king wentat once to the Scottish Parliament with the news,to seek their counsel and aid. Now at least theking, parliament, and nation, will be one in theirindignation."

"It would be well if the king had dismissedbefore this the Irish Catholic army which LordStrafford raised for him," said nay Father. "It iswell known that its officers have been in communicationwith the assassins."

"Yes,public orders," my Father replied; "butthere are rumours of secret instructions havingaccompanied, not precisely to the same effect."

"Rumours!" she said eagerly; "Mr. Drayton,mere rumours! You are too just and generous tolisten to a vulgar report, with the king's wordagainst it."

"Madam," he replied, very gravely, "it wouldhave been the salvation of the country long since ifthe king's word had been a sufficient reply toattacks on his policy. There is nothing so revolutionaryas falsehood in high places."

"I call untruth the great revolutionist," hereplied. "Without truth and trust all communitiesmust ultimately fall to pieces, with more or lessnoise, according as they are assailed by a stronghand from without, or simply crumble from within.The ruin is certain."

"But all good men must be agreed in detestingthese barbarous deeds," she said. "Even the Earlof Castlehaven, a Catholic, has said that all thewater in the sea would not wash off from the Irishthe stain of their treacherous murders in a time ofsettled peace."

"No doubt there are Catholics, madam, who speakthe truth and hate injustice," said my Father.

"You are unjust, you are cruel to His Majesty,"she said, with tears in her eyes, "if you could beunjust or cruel to any one."

"Lady Lucy," he replied, "this is a time for allmen who fear God and love England to be united.Would Lord Strafford (could he come back amongus) contradict the words wrung from him when theking signed his death-warrant? Would he say, 'Putyour trust in princes?'"

"It is too bad to drive the king to actions hedetests, and then to reproach him for them. He wouldhave saved Lord Strafford, as all men know, if hecould. It is the distrust of the country that hascompelled the king to have recourse to subtletiesno gentleman would choose."

"Harry Davenant," said my Father, "I amconfident no measure of unjust distrust would driveyou to the policy of making promises you nevermeant to keep."

"My life is simple, sir," was the mournful reply,"and it is my own. If I choose any evil to myself,rather than go from my word, or imply the thing Ido not mean, I am at liberty to do so. But theking's life is manifold. He stands before the Highestwith the nation gathered up into his single person.He stands above the nation as the anointedrepresentative of the King of kings. God himself is onlyindirectly King of nations by being King of kings.He stands between the past and the future with asacred trust of prerogative and right to guard andtransmit. It is not for us to apply the standards ofour private morality to him."

"Apply the standards of Divine morality to all!"said my Father. "Truth is the pillar of heaven aswell as of earth. There is no bond of society likea trusted word."

"At least, sir," rejoined Harry Davenant, gentlybut loftily, "it is not for me who eat the king'sbread to say or hear ought disloyal to him. Norwill I." And he rose to leave.

"One word more," he said, "disloyalty is a terribleword, and we may hear more of it in these comingyears. Let me say to you, once for all, thequestion is not of loyalty or disloyalty, but towhom our loyalty is due. I believe it is to Englandand her laws; to the king if he is faithful to these."

"More than one," said my Father, solemnly. "TheEnglish laws he has sworn to maintain; the eternalLawgiver from whom you say he holds his crown,whose laws of truth and equity are no secret, andare as binding on the peasant as the prince."

Lady Lucy's manner had a peculiar tenderness init to me as she wished me good-bye.

"Very difficult times, Olive!" she said, kissingme; "but we will remember women have onework at all times; to make peace and pour balminto wounds."

"Don't believe those wicked things about theking, or I shall not be able to come to Netherby."

"I can always help believing things I don't like,"she said. "Wishing is half way to believing." Andshe slipped away, leaving a very heavyshadow on Roger's face as he turned back to thehouse.

"Not quite so clear, Olive," said Aunt Dorothy,when I repeated to her Lady Lucy's words as aproof of her good will. "There are times whenDeborah is as necessary as Barak, and more so.And then there was Judith, a valiant and godlywoman, although she is in the Apocrypha. Andthere are times when the knife is kinder than all thebalm in Gilead."

"Knives are never safe, however," added myFather, "except in hands that use them for thesame purpose as the balms."

The intercourse of the two families did not ceaseafter that little debate. It rather became morefrequent. The uneasy consciousness of the manypublic differences that might at any time sever usonly made us cling the more tenaciously, althoughwith trembling, to the private ties that united usFor a fortnight after the Irish tidings reached us,Lady Lucy, Aunt Gretel, and even Aunt Dorothy,found a practical bond of union in collecting all theclothes and provisions they could send to thesufferers by the Irish massacre.

Then came the news of divisions in the patriotparty in the Parliament, with reference to theframing and printing of the Grand Remonstrance, votedto be printed on the 8th of December. Lady Lucydwelt much on the conciliatory intentions of theking, on the feastings and welcomes prepared forhim in the city of London, and especially on thedefection of the gallant Sir Bevil Granvill, LordFalkland, and Mr. Hyde, from the popular cause."All moderate men," she said, "felt it was becomingthe cause of disorder, and were abandoning it;and my Father, the most moderate and candid ofmen, would not, she was sure, remain with a littleknot of fanatics and levellers."

That Christmas-tide the Grand Remonstrance,with its long list of royal and ecclesiasticaloppressions, and its statement of the recent victories ofParliament over evil laws and evil councillors, wasread and eagerly debated at every fire-side in thekingdom.

"But what do they want?" Lady Lucy wouldsay. "They seem, from their own statements, tohave gained all they sought."

"They want security for everything!" my Fatherwould reply, "security for what they have won; aguard of their own appointing to keep them free, tosecure them against the guard of his own appointing,with which they believe the king is endeavouringto surround and make them prisoners."

"Will no promises, no assurances of good-willsatisfy them?" she said. "They have sent ten moreprelates to keep the archbishop company in theTower. What further guarantees would they demand?"

"It is hard indeed," he said, sorrowfully, "for allthe concessions in the world to restore brokenconfidence. All the fortresses in England, or astanding army of a million, would not be such asafeguard to the king as his own word might have been.There is no cement in heaven or earth strong enoughto restore trust in broken faith."

"It is not always so easy to be sincere," she said,"and God forgives and trusts us again and again."

"God forgives because he sees," he said. "Nationsare not omniscient, and therefore cannot forgive,nor trust when they have been betrayed."

"The Parliament is unreasonable," she said, withtears in her eyes; "they judge like private gentlemen.Statesmen and princes cannot speak with thesimple candour of private men. Politics are likechess. You would not confide every move beforehandto your enemy."

"The King and the Parliament do not profess tobe on opposite sides of the game," he replied. "Butif, in fact, it has come to that, can you wonder atany amount of mutual suspicion? Yet our Puritanfaith is, that there is but one law of truth andequity in heaven and earth for prince, soldier,peasant, woman, and child. And I believe that, evenwith hostile nations, not all the diplomatic subtletiesin the world would give us the strength thereis in a trusted word. Let it once be felt of man ornation, 'They have said it, therefore they mean it;'and they have a strength nothing else can give.There must be two threads to weave a web of falsepolicy. Withdraw one, and the other falls to piecesof itself. I believe the ruler who could make theword of an Englishman a proverb for truth, woulddo more for the strength of England than one whowon her fortresses on every island and coast in theworld."

"But see how the king trusts the people, Mr. Drayton,"she said. "His presence in that verytumultuous disorderly city ought to make thembelieve him."

"I do not see that His Majesty has had reason todistrust the people," my Father replied.

"Ah!" she sighed; "if you had only seen HisMajesty amidst his family, his chivalrous tendernessto the queen, his native stateliness all laid aside inplayful fondness for his children."

"It might have made it more painful to have todistrust him as a king," my Father replied. "Itcould scarcely have made it more possible totrust."

"Well," she said, "either the nation will learn,ere long, to trust his gracious intentions as hedeserves, or will learn to their cost what a sovereignthey have distrusted!"

But scarcely a week afterwards the whole countrywas set in a flame by the tidings that His Majestyhad gone in person—attended by five hundredarmed men, many of them young desperadoes,feasted the night before at Whitehall—to arrest thefive members (Pym, Hampden, Hazelrig, DenzilHollis, and William Strode) in the inviolatesanctuary of the nation, the Parliament House itself.

And after that my Father and Lady Lucy ceasedto hold any more political debates.

"But if all good men distrust His Majesty, willhe not be driven to trust to evil men?"

"I am afraid the course of falsehood is everdownward," he answered, very sadly, "and thebreaches of just distrust ever widening."

"But, for heaven's sake, Mr. Drayton," she said,with an imploring accent, as we returned with herto the Hall, "think before you plunge into theseterrible divisions."

"I have thought long, madam," he said, "for Ihave fought in the Thirty Years' War, and seenhow war can devastate."

"But that was easy," she said, "that was churchagainst church, state against state, prince againstprince. This will be the church divided againstitself, the nation divided against itself, subjectagainst king, one good man against another. Think,if you join Mr. Hampden and Mr. Pym what nobleand wise men you will have against you! (for youhonour Sir Bevil Grenvill and Lord Falkland asmuch as we do); what violent and fanatical menwith you!"

"If all good men were on one side," he said,sorrowfully, "there need be few battles in church orstate."

"It seems to me," she added, "there is no partyone would willingly join save that of the peace-makers."

"That indeed is the very party I would seek tojoin," said my Father. "But that seems to me thevery party which, from ancient times, has beenstigmatized as those who turn the world upside down.Since the Fall peace can seldom be reached savethrough conflict."

Meanwhile Roger had joined us, and Lettice, aswe were about to separate, whispered to me,clasping my hands in hers,—

"They may turn the world upside down, Olive,but they shall not separate us! How happy it isfor us," she said, turning to Roger, who was standinga little apart, "that, as Harry says, women havenothing to do with politics."

"I am afraid," he said, in his abrupt way,"women have often more than any to suffer frompolitics."

"You take things so gravely, Roger," she said."Everything would be right if you would not allof you be so hard on people who have done a littlewrong; and would only try and believe what wemust all wish, and so bring it about."

"Everything will bewrong," said Roger, withmelancholy emphasis, "if you will believe thingsand people because you wish, and not because theyare true."

For Roger, true to every one, was truthful toscrupulousness with Lettice; what she was, orbecame, being of more moment to him than even whatshe thought of him.

"I am not sixteen, and I have seen the countryat the point of ruin, I cannot tell how many times.Other clouds have blown over, and so will this."

And she sped away to rejoin her mother, onlyonce more turning back to wave her hand and say:

"To-morrow morning, Olive, at the Lady Well!The ice will be strong enough on the Mere forskating. To-morrow!"

But the next morning, when Roger and I went tothe Lady Well, no Lettice was there.

The frozen surface of the Mere was strewn withit, except in places where it was sheltered by theoverhanging brushwood, where it lay black as steelagainst the white banks. All the music was frozenin stream and wood. The drops, whose soft tricklinginto the well beneath, had floated Lettice andme into fairy-land last summer, hung in glitteringsilent icicles around the stone sides of the well.

And when we reached home we found a messengerand a letter from Lettice, saying Lady Lucy hadbeen summoned to attend the Queen at Windsor,that Lettice had accompanied her, and that HarryDavenant and Sir Walter, being engaged about theking's person, Sir Launcelot Trevor had come toescort them.

"The Princess Mary is about to be married to thePrince of Orange," Lettice wrote; "and as thequeen is to accompany her to the Low Countries,she wishes to see my mother before she leaves thecountry."

"It would be a good service to us all if the queenwould stay away for ever," said Aunt Dorothy—andshe expressed the feeling of a large part of thenation—"the king would lose the worst of his evilcounsellors."

"That depends," said my Father, sadly, "onwhether the king is not his own worst counsellor.If the evil has its origin in others, the queen mayindeed injure him more by remaining here. But, onthe other hand, she may succour him more on theContinent."

"Well, at all events," said Aunt Dorothy, "herabsence may be a blessing to Lady Lucy andMistress Lettice. For that child is not withoutgracious dispositions. Last week she called when everyone else was out, and wishing to turn the time toaccount, I set her to read aloud from the sermons ofgood Mr. Adams; and she read two and part of thethird, only twice going to the window to see if anyone was coming, and never even looking up, after Ionce asked her if she was tired."

"Do you think she really enjoyed them, AuntDorothy?" I asked; knowing how difficult it wasto ascertain Lettice's distastes, on account of herpredominant taste of doing what pleased otherpeople.

"I think better of the child than to deem shewould seem pleased with aught she did not reallylike," said Aunt Dorothy; and, although unconvinced,I rejoiced that Aunt Dorothy had fallen underthe spell.

"The first sermon was 'The Spiritual NavigatorBound for the Holy Land,' about the glassy sea;and she said it was near as pretty reading asSpenser's 'Faery Queen'—a remark which, though itshowed some lack of spiritual discernment, wassomething, in that it showed she was entertained.The second was 'Heaven's Gate;' and when wecame to the place about the gate being in our ownheart,—'Great manors have answerable porches.Heaven must needs be spacious, when a little starfixed in a far lower orb exceeds the earth in quantity;yet it hath a low gate, not a lofty coming in.' Andshe said she had thought the Gate of Heavenwas only opened when we die, not here while we live,and it was a strange thing to think on. The thirdsermon was 'Semper Idem, the Immutable Mercyof Jesus Christ,' and in that we did not read far;for when she read 'the sun of divinity is the Scripture,the sun of Scripture is the gospel, the sun ofthe gospel is Jesus Christ. Nor is this the centreof his word only, but of our rest. Thou hast madeus for thee, O Christ, and the heart is unquiet till itrest in thee; seeking, we may find Him—he isready; finding, we may still seek Him; he isinfinite,'—her voice trembled, and with tears in hereyes, she looked up and said, 'I suppose that iswhat the other sermon means byentering the Gate ofHeaven now.' And I deem that a wise thing for achild to say, brought up as she has been under thevery walls of Babylon. And the poor youngthing's ways pleased me so that I gave her thethree sermons to keep. And she promised to setstore by them, and treasure them in a cedarn boxshe hath, together with some books by Dr. Taylor.And although Dr. Taylor is an Arminian, I had notthe heart to cross the child. Especially as booksare not like us; they are none the worse for beingin bad company."

But Roger made no comment. Only the nextSunday, as we were walking home from churchtogether, he said sorrowfully—

"Oh, Olive, so ready to be pleased with everythingas she is, so pleased to please every one, sosure to please, so true and generous, so ready tobelieve good of every one; that she should be launchedinto that false Court! I shall always dread tohear any one say, 'To-morrow.' If we could onlyhave known, there were so many things one mighthave said or have left unsaid. The last thing I saidto her seems to me now so harsh. She will alwaysthink of us as rebuking her. And her last look wasa defiant little smile! If we could only know whatdays, or what words, are to be the last. To-morrow,"he added, "she was to have met us at the oldwell, and now she is at the king's Court; andbetween us lies a great gulf of civil war; and thewhole country in such tumult, it seems a kind ofdisloyalty to England to think of our own privatesorrows."

And Roger spoke but too truly. For it is impossibleto say how deeply that act of the king's ininvading the Parliament had incensed the wholenation. It showed, as nothing else could have done,my Father said, that what was holy ground to thenation was mere common soil to the king. Menhad borne to have soldiers illegally billeted on theirhomes; fathers torn, against law, from their families,and left to die in prisons. Each such act oftyranny was exceptional or partial, and might beredressed by patient appeals to our ancient laws.Much of personal liberty might be sacrificed ratherthan violate the order on which all true liberty isbased. But the Parliament House during the sittingof the Parliament was the sacred hearth of thenation itself. Every man felt his own hearthviolated in its violation. Henceforth nothing wassacred, nothing was safe, throughout the land. Andfrom that day, my Father, dreading civil war asonly a soldier can who knows what the terrors ofwar are, never seemed to have a doubt that it mustcome. Nor, candid as he was, to the verge ofweakness (as Aunt Dorothy thought), in his anxiety toallow what was just to all sides, did he ever seemafter that to doubt, if the strife came, on which sidehe must stand.

There was a strange mixture of rigid adherencesto ancient forms, with the boldest spirit of liberty,in that scene in Parliament on the 3rd of January1642.

Dr. Antony wrote us how all the members roseuncovered before the king, how the speaker on hisknee beside his own chair, which the king hadusurped, refused to answer His Majesty's questionsas to the absence of the five members, whom hiseye vainly sought in their vacant places, saying:"Please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see,nor ears to hear, nor tongue to speak in this place,save as the House directs me." "Words," wroteDr. Antony, "respectful enough for a courtier ofNebuchadnezzar, with a meaning as kingly as thoseof any Cæsar. Not a disrespectful word or gesturewas directed against the king as he retired baffledfrom the House, saying, that he saw the birds hadflown, and protesting that he had intended nobreach of privilege. But before he descended thesteps of the Hall to rejoin the armed guard outside,the civil war, my Father said, had begun."

The next day the king had returned baffled fromanother attempt to arrest the five members in thecity. The aldermen, true representatives of thegreat merchants of England, were as resolute as theParliament. They made His Majesty a great feast,but no concessions.

Within a week a thousand seamen from the goodships in the broad Thames had offered their servicesto guard the Parliament from their refuge in thecity by water to Westminster, and as many 'prenticeshad entreated to be permitted to render a similarservice by land; four thousand freeholders fromBuckinghamshire (Hampden's county) had enteredLondon on horseback with petitions against wickedcouncillors, and (on the 10th of January) the kinghad left Whitehall for Hampden Court.

But no man knew he would not return thitheruntil seven years later, on another January day,never to leave it more.

So few last days come to us clothed in mourningannouncing themselves as the last. We step smilinginto the ferry-boat which is to carry us for alittle while, as we think, across the narrow stream,and wave our hands and say to those who watchus from the familiar shore, "To-morrow!" and beforewe are aware the stream is a sea, the ferry-boatis the boat of Charon, the familiar shore is out ofsight; the window of the Banquetting house hasbecome the threshold of the scaffold, and to-morrowis eternity.

CHAPTER VII.

When I think of the months which passedbetween the king's attempted arrest ofthe five members and the first battle ofthe Civil War, I sometimes wonder howany one can ever undertake to write history.

In the little bit of the world known to us, partieswere so strangely intertwined, so strangely divided,and so heterogeneously composed. The motivesthat drew men to one side or the other were sovarious and so mixed, that I think scarce one ofthose we knew fought on the same side for the samereason; while the differences which separated manymen in the same party were certainly wider in manyrespects than those which separated them fromothers against whom they fought.

How world-wide the difference between HarryDavenant and Sir Launcelot Trevor! How nicelybalanced the scales that made my Father and JohnHampden "rebels," and Harry Davenant or LordFalkland "malignants!"

Yet the distinctions were real, at least so it seemsto me. Nor do I see how, if all were to be againstarting from the same point, either could avoid comingto the same issue.

Harry Davenant believed revolution to be ruin,and chose the most arbitrary rule instead.

My Father, equally dreading revolution, believedthe king to be the great revolutionist; by hisarbitrary will changing times and laws; by his hopelessuntruth subverting the foundations of society.Slowly he stepped down into the cold bitter watersof civil war, having for his watch-word, "Loyaltyto England and her laws!" His chief hope lay inMr. Hampden.

Roger again, and others like him, hoping morefrom liberty than he feared from revolution, andbelieving the contest would be fiery, but brief anddecisive, plunged gallantly into the flood, withLiberty blazoned on their banners; liberty to do rightand to speak the truth. His chosen captain wasMr. Cromwell, in whose troop he served fromthe first. God only knew the bitter pang it costhim (I knew it not till years afterwards) to takehis post on the field which must, he knew, make sogreat a gulf between him and the Davenants. Itwas seldom Roger spoke of what he felt; scarceever of what he suffered.

"Chirurgeons, like women, have indeed theirplace on the battle-field, and not out of reach of thedanger. But their work is with the wounded, andtheir weapons are turned against the enemy of all;the 'last enemy,' scarce to be destroyed in this war!I hope to succour on the battle-field those I soughtto comfort in the prisons. God grant I find the airof the field as wholesome to the spirits of my patientsas that of the dungeon."

Job Forster never hesitated for a moment as towhich was the right side. To him England was inone sense Canaan to be conquered, in another theChosen Land to be kept sacred. The king was Saul;or, in other aspects, Sihon king of the Amorites, orOg king of Bashan. The Parliament, at first, and thenthe Lord Protector and the army, were the chosenpeople, Moses, Joshua, David. His only hesitationwas whether he himself ought to fight on the field,or to work at the forge and protect Rachel and thevillage at home. "The Almighty," he said, "hasnot given me this big body of mine for nought. Godforbid it should be said of Job Forster, Why abodestthou amidst the sheep-folds to hear the bleatings ofthe flocks?—that is, the ring of the hammer andanvil, which is as the bleating of my flocks to me.Yet there is Rachel! And the old law was merciful;and if it forbid a man to leave his new-marriedwife, how should I answer for leaving her who hasmore need of me, and has none but me? and she soailing, and I, to whom the Lord has said as plainas words can speak, 'Be thou better to her than tensons."

It was perhaps the first perplexity he had neverconfided to her, and sorely was Job exercised, untilone morning in August he came to my Father witha lightened countenance, and said,—

"Mr. Drayton, she has given the word, as plain asever Deborah spoke to Barak. I've got mycommission, and I'm ready to go this night."

Afterwards, in an intimate talk by a camp-fire,he once told Roger how that morning, between thelights, he woke up and saw her kneeling downwith her arms crossed upon the Book, and her eyesraised up to heaven, and running fast with tears."I lifted myself," he said, "on my elbow, andI looked at her. But I didn't like to speak; Isaw there was something going on between hersoul and the Lord. And last she rose and came tome with a face as pale as the sheet, but without atear in her eyes or a tremble in her voice, and shesaid, 'Job, thou shalt have thy way; the Lord hasmade me ready to give thee up.' And I said,sheepish-like, 'How canst thee know what I willed?I never said aught to thee!' Then she smiled andsaid, 'Thee never thinks thee says aught exceptthee speaks plain enough for the town-crier. Havenot I heard thy sighs, and seen thy hankering lookswhenever any of the lads listed these weeks past?But I could not speak before; now I can. For I'vegotten the word from the Lord for thee and for me,and woe is me if I hold my peace.' The word forme was: 'Now I know that thou fearest God, seeingthou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son,from me.' 'And that,' said she, 'means thee, Job;for thou are more to me than that,' said she, 'morethan that, only and all. I have no promise to holdthee by, like Abraham had for Isaac, yet if the Lordcalls, what can I do?' And there her voice gaveway, but she hurried on—'And I've gotten a wordfor thee, "Have not I commanded thee? Be strongand of a good courage, for the Lord thy God is withthee wheresoever thou goest."' "So," concludedJob, "I got my word of command; and there was nomore to be said. We knelt down together andgave ourselves up; and as soon as it was fairly dayI came to give in my name."

That was Job Forster's motive. He believed hehad the word of command direct from the King ofkings. And this was the motive, I believe, ofhundreds and thousand more or less like him; menwho, as the Lord Protector said when the strife wasover, were "never beaten." Gloriously distinctthe two armies and the two causes seemed to him,perplexed by no subtle perceptions of right on thewrong side, or of wrong on the right.

To Aunt Dorothy also matters were equallyclear, although her point of view was not preciselythe same, and in the subsequent subdivisions sheand Job became seriously opposed. Aunt Dorothybelieved that she saw in the New Testament amodel of church ritual and government, minutelydefined to the last stave or pin or loop of thetabernacle; and rather that abandon the minutest ofthese sacred details she would willingly havesuffered any temporal loss. The whole Presbyterianorder of church government she saw clearly unfoldedin the Acts and the Epistles; and that godly menlike Mr. Cromwell on the other hand, or learned menlike Dr. Jeremy Taylor on the other, should fail tosee it also, was a miracle only to be accounted for bythe blinding power of Satan, especially predicted inthese last days. With regard to the Governmentof the State also, her belief was equally definite,derived, as she considered, from the same Divinesource. The king was "the anointed of the Lord." Inthis, she said, Lady Lucy had undoubted insightinto the truth. His wicked councillors might beput to death, as traitors at once against him and therealm; armies might by his Parliament be raisedagainst him; but it must be in his name, with thepurpose of setting him free from those evilcouncillors by whom he was virtually kept a prisoner;his judgment being by them enthralled, so that hewas irresponsible for his acts, and might quitelawfully by his faithful covenanted subjects be placed,respectfully, under bodily restraint, if thereby hismind might be disenthralled from the hard bondageof the wicked. But beyond this no subject mightgo. The king's person was sacred; no profanehand could be lifted with impunity against him.Any difficulty, disorder, or evil, must be endured,rather than touch a hair of the consecrated head.This also was a conviction for which Aunt Dorothywas fully prepared to encounter any amount ofcontradiction or disaster. The narrow ridge on whichshe walked erect, without wavering or misgiving,was, she was persuaded, marked out as manifestlyas the path of the Israelites through the Red Seaby the wall of impassable waters on either hand,by the pillar of cloud and fire behind. To thisnarrow way she would have allured, led, or if needfulcompelled every human soul, for their good, and theglory of God. No vicissitudes of fortune affectedher convictions; the sorrows of all who deviatedfrom this narrow path being, in her belief, from theSword of the Avenger, while the sorrows of thosewho kept to it were from the Rod of the Comforter.My Father's adherence to very much the samecourse of conduct, from a belief of its expediency,and Aunt Gretel's from the tenderness of sympathywhich inevitably drew her to the side on whichthere was the most suffering, seemed to AuntDorothy happy accidents, or special and uncovenantedmercies, singularly vouchsafed to persons of theiruncertain and indefinite opinions. Not that AuntDorothy's nature was in any way vulgar, small, andnarrow. Her heart was deep and high, if not alwayswide. To her convictions she would have sacrificedfirst herself, then the universe. Her convenience shewould have sacrificed to the comfort of the meanesthuman being in the universe. She would not haveswerved from her ridge of orthodoxy for the dearestlove on earth. She would have stooped from itto save or help the most degraded wanderer, or hergreatest enemy.

But the most dangerous conviction she held wasunfortunately one of the deepest. It was that ofher own practical infallibility. It was strange that,with the profoundest and most practical convictionsof her own sinfulness, she never could learn theimpossibility that all error should be removed whilstany sin remains; that there should be no darknessin the mind while there is so much in the heart.Strange, but not uncommon. Her sin she acknowledgedas her own. Her creed she identified entirelywith the Holy Scriptures. It was not her own, shesaid, it was God's truth to the minutest point, and,as such, she would have suffered or fought for everyclause.

Nevertheless, with advancing years Roger and Igrew into a deeper reverence for her character. Ifin our childhood she represented to us Justice withthe sword and scales (often in our belief veryeffectually blindfolded), whilst Aunt Gretel enactedcounteracting Mercy; in after years we grew ratherto look on them as Truth and Tenderness, actingnot counter to each other, but in combination. Andin this imperfect world, where truth and love arenever blended in perfect proportions in any onecharacter, it is difficult to say on which we leant themost. It was strange to see how often theiropposite attributes led them to the same actions."Speaking the truth in love," was Aunt Dorothy'smaxim; and if the love were sometimes lost in theemphasis on truth, neither truth nor love were eversacrificed to selfish interest. "First pure thenpeaceable" was her wisdom; and I cannot say she alwaysgot as far as the "gentle, and easy to be entreated." Butit is something to be able to look back on a lifelike hers, unprofaned by one stain of untruthfulness,or by one low or petty aim. It is only in lookingback that we learn what a rock of strength she wasto us all, or how the tenderest memories of homeoften cling like mosses around such rocks; themore closely, sometimes, for their very ruggedness.Thus our home at Netherby contained variouselements ecclesiastical and political as well as moral,all of which, however, at the commencement ofthe civil wars were gathered together under thewatchword, "Loyalty above all to the King ofkings. Liberty to obey God."

It was this indeed, that, with all our internaldifferences as to church government and seculargovernment, united us into one party. Whatevervarieties of opinion as to church government ourparty contained: Presbyterian, Independent, ModerateEpiscopal, or Quaker; classical, republican,aristocratic, English constitutional, or, finally, theadherents of the Deliverer, chosen (they deemed)as divinely and to be obeyed as implicitly as anyHebrew judge—all believed in the theocracy.

The liberty our party contended for was no mereunloosing of bonds. It was liberty to obey thehighest law. It was no mere levelling to clear anempty space for new experiments. It was sweepingaway ruins to clear a platform for the kingdom ofGod.

And this was another point in which the recollectionsof my life make me feel how vast and complicatedan undertaking it must be to write history.

In our early days we used to be given historiesof the Church and histories of the world. Profanehistories and sacred histories as neatly and definitelyseparated as if the Church and the world hadbeen two distinct planets.

But in our own times, at least, it seems to meabsolutely impossible thus to separate them. TheBattle of Dunbar was to Oliver Cromwell and hisarmy as religious an act as their prayer-meeting atWindsor. The righting the poor folks who losttheir rights on the Soke of Somersham was, Ibelieve, as religious an act to Mr. Cromwell as theappointment of the gospel-lectures. And as with theactions so with the persons. Who can say whichpersons of our time belong to ecclesiastical andwhich to secular history?

Does the history of the Convocation, of theStar-Chamber, or of the Westminster Assembly, belongto sacred history; and the history of the LongParliament, where decisions were made for time andeternity, or of the battle-fields whence thousandswent to their last account, to profane? Is themaking of confessions of faith a religious act, andthe living by them or dying for them secular? AreArchbishop Laud, Bishop Williams, Mr. Baxter,Dr. Owen, Mr. Howe, ecclesiastical persons; andLord Falkland, Mr. Hampden, Mr. Pym, or OliverCromwell, secular?

In our times, as in my own life, it seems to meabsolutely impossible to say where sacred historybegins and where the profane ends.

My consolation is that it seems to me much thesame in the Holy Scriptures. We call Genesis sacredhistory; and what is it, chiefly, but a story offamily life? What is Exodus but a record ofnational deliverances? What are the Chronicles andKings but histories of wars and sieges, interspersedwith pathetic family stories? What, indeed, arethe gospels themselves but the record, not of creedsor ecclesiastical conflicts, but of a life, the Life,coming in contact with every form of sickness, andsin, and sorrow in this our common everydayhuman life? What would the gospels be withnothing but the Sabbaths and the synagogues, and theSanhedrim, and the Scribes and Pharisees left inthem? With the widow's only son left out of them,and the ruler's little daughter, and the woman whowas a sinner, and the five thousand fed on the grassyslopes of Galilee, and the one young man whodeparted sorrowful 'for he had great possessions?' Wouldit have been more truly Church history forbeing the less human history?

The Bible history seems to me to be a history ofall human life in relation to God. The sins of theBible are terribly manifest, secular sins; injustice,impurity, covetousness, cruelty. Its virtues aresimple homely, positive virtues; truth, uprightness,kindness, mercy, gratitude, courage, gentleness;such sins and virtues as make the weal or woe ofnations and of homes. Ordinary ecclesiasticalhistory seems to me too often a record of secularstruggles for consecrated things, and names, and places,and of selfish strivings for which shall be greatest.The sins it blames, too often mere transgressions ofrules, mistakes as to religious terms, neglect of thetithe of mint, anise, and cummin. The virtues itcommends, alas! too often negative renunciationsof certain indulgences, scruples as to certainobservances, fasting twice in the week; things which,done or undone, leave the heart the same.

But underneath all this a Church history like thatof the Bible is being silently lived on earth, is beingsilently written in heaven. Little glimpses of it wesee here from time to time. What will it be whenwe see it all?

All through that summer the country was astirwith the enlistings for the king and the Parliament.

On the 23d of February, Queen Henrietta Mariahad embarked at Dover for the Low Countries, withthe Princess Mary and the crown jewels.

From the time that she was in safety the king'stone to the Parliament began (it was thought) tochange. Always chivalrously regardful of her, andin different to danger for himself (for none of hisfather's timidity could ever be charged to him), hebegan to give more open answers to the populardemands. He hoped also, it was said, much fromthe queen's eloquence and exertions in his cause onthe Continent. It was his misfortune, my Fathersaid, that any favourable turn in his affairs madehim unyielding; and thus it happened that he onlycame to terms when his cause was at the worst, sothat his treaties had the double disadvantage ofbeing made under the most adverse circumstances,and with men who knew from repeated experiencethat not one of his most sacred promises would bekept if he could help it. Such virtues as hepossessed seemed always to come into action at thewrong moment; his courage when it could onlykindle irritation; his graciousness when it couldonly inspire contempt.

The queen being safely out of the country, andthe king safely out of the capital, from his refugeat York came the renewal of the old irritatingdemand for tonnage and poundage, rooting theopposition firmer than ever in the irrevocable distrustof the royal word.

The demand of the king for the old usurpationswas met by the assertion of the Parliament of oldrights, with the demand for new powers to securethese; by the assertion of the power of the purse,and the demand for power over the militia.

But to us women at Netherby all these negotiationsand fencings between the king and the Parliamentsounded so much like what had gone on forso long, everything was couched in such orderlyand constitutional language, that it was difficult tothink anything more than Protestations, Remonstrances,Breach of Privilege, and Protests forPrivilege, would ever come of it.

The first thing that roused me to the sense thatit might end not in words but in battles, was thenews that reached us one April evening that theking had gone in person with three hundred horsemento the gates of Hull, and had summoned SirJohn Hotham to surrender the city; that Sir Johnhad refused to surrender or to admit the king'stroops (offering all loyal courtesy at the same timeto the king himself); that the king and his threehundred had thereon gone off baffled to Beverly,and there proclaimed Sir John Hotham a traitor.

"This seems to me altogether to introduce a newset of terms and things. Instead of Protestationsand Remonstrances, we hear of Summonses andSurrenders. The king and his cavaliers repulsedfrom the closed gates of one of his own cities!Aunt Gretel, these are new words to us; does notthis look like war?"

"Alas, sweet heart, these are no new words tome. Your people seem to arrange many thingsothers fight about, by talking about them. And itis difficult for me to say what words mean withyou. But these words are indeed terribly familiarto me. And in my country they would certainlymean war."

And that night I well remember the perplexitythat crossed my prayers, whether in praying asusual for the king I might not be praying againstthe Parliament, and against my Father and Roger,and the nation; until after debating the matter inmy own mind for some time, I came to the conclusionthat on whatever dark mountains scattered,and by whatever deep waters divided, to Himthere is still "One flock, one Shepherd," and thathowever ill I knew how to ask, He knew well whatto give.

"York,April, 1642.—It has actually begun at last.The rebellion has begun. Sir John Hotham (Sir Ihesitate to call him, for what knight is worthy thename who turns his disloyal sword against the veryFountain of knighthood and of all honor?) has closedthe gates of Hull against the summons—against thevery voice and person of His Sacred Majesty. Atonce the king withdrew to Beverley, and under theshadow of the grand old Minster proclaimed thefalse knight a traitor.

"The rebellion has begun, but every one says itcannot last long. Next Christmas at latest mustsee us all at peace again; the nation once more atthe feet of the king. My Mother says like a prodigalchild; Sir Launcelot says like a beaten hound.Mobs, says he, like dogs, can only learn to obey bybeing suffered to rebel a little, and then being whippedfor it. (I like not well this talk of Sir Launcelot.If the nation is like a hound, at what pointin the nation does the dog-nature begin, and thehuman end?) Speaking so, I told him, we mightinclude ourselves. But he laughed, and said, suchdiscerning of spirits required no miraculous gift.Moreover, he said, the king himself had oncecompared the Parliaments to 'cats, to be tamed whenyoung but cursed when old;' and had called hissailors in the Thames who offered to guard theParliament 'water-rats.' If the king said so, I confessI think His Majesty might have chosen more courtlysimiles. But I do not believe he did. I willnever believe any evil of His Majesty, whoever saysit, scarcely if I were to see it myself, for my eye?might be deceived.

"Only I should be sorely vexed if they heardthese things at Netherby; because they never saidrough things of any one. Especially now I am notthere to explain things. For I am not allowed towrite to them, nor to see them again, until thingsare right again in the country; which makes mewrite this.

"However, it cannot last long. Every one hereagrees in that. Every one except Harry, whom wecall 'Il Penseroso.' He sees such a long way, andon so many sides, or at least he tries to do so; andhe talks of the Wars of the Roses, and the Warsin Germany; as if there were any resemblance! InGermany there were kings and states opposed. Inthe Wars of the Roses royal persons, with somekind of claim to reign. But this is nothing but flatrebellion. The family against the father; swornliegemen against their sovereign lord; the bodyagainst the head. And how can any one think fora moment there can be any end to it but one, andthat soon? Yes; at Christmas, I trust, we Davenantsshall be at the Hall again, and the Draytonsat Netherby, looking back to the end of this franticand unnatural outbreak.

"And I mean to be most generous to them allabout it. I do not mean even to say, 'I always toldyou how it would end.' They will see, and thatwill be enough. The king will forgive every one,I am sure, he is so gracious and gentle—(he spoketo me like a father the other day, and yet with suchknightly deference!)—except, perhaps, a very few,who will have to be made examples of, unless theymake examples of themselves by running out ofthe country, which I hope they may. For havingonce re-asserted his rightful authority, the king willbe able to be forgiving without being suspected ofweakness. There need not be any more poor mistakenpeople set in the pillory, which really seemsto do no one any good, as far as I can see, and tomake every one so exceedingly angry. The Puritans(that is, those among them who have anysense) will see that it really can make no differencewhether the clergyman says the prayers in a whitedress or a black. Perhaps even the bishops andarchbishops might own the same. Because, althoughit cannot be good management to give anaughty child its way for crying, if it stops cryingand is good, it is quite another thing.

"And then everything would go on delightfully.The very troublesome and obstinate people (on bothsides, I think) might, perhaps, all go to America,some to the north and some to the south. For theAmerican plantations are very wide, they say, andby the time they met—say in one or two hundredyears—their great-great grandchildren might havegiven up caring so much about the colours of thevestments and the titles of the clergymen who dothe services in the church. So that by that timeeverything would go on delightfully in America aswell as in England. And by next Christmas, fromwhat the gentlemen and ladies about here say, Ishould think this might all have begun. Only justnow this little unpleasant contest has to be gonethrough first. And I am very much afraid as towhat Mr. Drayton and Roger may do, or evenOlive. They are so terribly conscientious. Theywill pick up the smallest questions with theirconsciences instead of with their common sense; whichseems to me like watering a daisy with a fire-engine,or weeding a flower-bed with a plough. MistressDorothy is the worst of them (dear, kind, old soul,I must now and then look at her sermons, in orderto make it quite clear to myself I was not a hypocritein listening to them all that time). But I donot think any of them are quite safe in this way.And yet I know, in my inmost heart, they are betterthan any one in the world, except my Mother, andperhaps Harry. (Of His Majesty it is not for meto speak.) And I love them better than any one inthe world, which, I am afraid, they will not believe,now I am not allowed to write to them. I lovethem for their noble perverseness, and their heroicconscientiousness, and their terrible truthfulness,and everything that separates us. And these lastmonths at home have been the happiest of my life.I felt growing quite good. And one thing I haveresolved. I will not say one word I should mindtheir hearing, so that when we meet again I mayhave nothing to explain or to unsay. For it is onlymisunderstanding that will ever make any of themtake the wrong side; nothing but misunderstanding.And facts will set that all right when theysee how things really are. As they will, I trust,before Christmas.

"It is not so easy to be good here as at Netherby.People say so many pretty things to me. MyMother says I must not heed them; they are onlyCourt ways of speaking, which mean nothing; andthat rightly used, I might even make them means ofmortification, saying every time I hear such prettyphrases, as good Dr. Taylor recommended, 'Mybeauty is in colour inferior to many flowers; andeven a dog hath parts as well proportioned to thedesigns of his nature as I have; and three fits ofan ague can change it into yellowness and leanness,and to hollowness and wrinkles of deformity.' Butthis I find not so easy. If I were a rose, I shouldbe pleased at being a rose, and at being thoughtsweet and fair. And even a well-favoured dog,meseems, has some harmless delight in his goodlooks. And as to the ague, I see no likelihood ofit. And as to becoming yellow and lean, the moreI think of it, the gladder I am to think I am not.And yet there is some little flutter in my pleasureat these fair speeches which hardly seems to me quitealtogether good. And I do not think my Motherquite knows what nonsense these young Cavalierstalk. Perhaps no one did ever talk nonsense toher. Or, if they did, I am sure she never liked it.And I am afraid I do sometimes a little. Else, whyshould it all come back into my mind at wrongtimes?—in the Minster or at prayers. Heigh, ho!I wish I was at Netherby. No one ever called mefair enchantress there, or my cheeks Aurora'srose-garden, or my teeth strings of pearls, or my handslilies, or my hair imprisoned sunbeams, or my voicethe music of the spheres. Sir Launcelot talkedenough of that kind of poetry to me, betweenNetherby and Windsor, to make a book of ballads.(For my Mother was in the sedan-chair, whilst Irode most of the way with Sir Launcelot.) And yet,I think, there is more honour in Roger Drayton'stelling me in his straight-forward way he thoughtme wrong, as he so often did, than in all SirLauncelot's most honeyed compliments.

"Not that I think Olive just to poor Sir Launcelot.If she could have seen his debonair and courteousways to every clown and poor wench we met,and how he flung his crowns and angels to anybeggar, she must have felt there is much kindlinessin him, with all his wild ways.

"And when he saw I liked not so many fairspeeches, he gave them up in a measure. I mustsay that for him; and he has been as deferential tome ever since at the Court, as if I were one of theprincesses. Only I wish he would not always seewhen I drop my glove or my posy: at least, I thinkI do. Yet it is rather pleasant, too, at times to feelthere is some one who cares about one among somany strange people, and some one who is alwaysready to talk about poor old Netherby, and whohonours the Draytons, moreover, so generously. Iwish Olive knew this.

"And I wish I were like my Mother, and had 'achapel built in my heart.' Or else that I could liveat Netherby.

"Sir Launcelot admires the 'beauty of holiness'in my Mother. He says, in all times, happily, therehave been these sweet exalted Saints, especiallyamong women, bright particular stars, celestialbeauties, and princesses, that all men must revere.Quite another kind of thing, he says, from thePuritan notion of calling all men to be 'saints,' orelse consigning them to reprobation as among thewicked.

"Note.—I am at a loss what to call this writing ofmine. It is scarcely a Diary or Journal, for I certainlyshall not do anything as regular as write in it everyday. It shall not be 'Annals;' for I hope to havedone with it before Christmas, when I shall havemet Olive and all of them again at home. 'Chronicles'are more solemn still. 'Thoughts?' whereshall I find them? 'Facts?' how is one to knowthem, when people give such different accounts ofthings? 'Meditations?' worse again. 'ReligiousJournals,' 'Confessions,' etc., always puzzled me.I could never make out for whom they were written.Especially the prayers I have seen written out atlength in them. They cannot be meant for otherpeople to read. That would be turning the 'closet'into 'the corners of the street.' They cannot bemeant for the people themselves to read. For whatgood could that do? It would not be praying tosee how I prayed some years since. They cannotsurely be meant for God to read. He is alwaysnear, and can hear, or read our hearts, which isquite another thing from reading our Diaries.

"May 30,York.—The birds begin to sing in thetrees around the Minster. Our lodging is opposite.And the courtiers begin to gather once more aroundthe king. Many lords have come these last daysfrom London, with some faithful members of theCommons' House, and old Lord Littleton has come,with somewhat limping loyalty, they say, after theGreat Seal, now in the right hand. So that thisgrave old town begins to look gay. Cavalierscaracolling about the streets, doffing their hats to fairfaces in the windows. Troops mustering but slowly;somewhat slowly. Nor can I make out if thesetownspeople altogether like us and our ways. Thereare so many Puritans among these traders. AndSir Launcelot says they have great sport in thePuritan household where he is quartered, in makingthe Puritan lads learn the 'Distracted Puritan,' andother roystering Cavalier songs, and drinkconfusion to the Covenant; and in making the host andhostess bring out their best conserves, linen andplate, for the use of the men. Sir Launcelot toldthem, he said, that they should only look on it asthe payment of an old debt the children of Israelhad owed to the Egyptians these three thousandyears. I do not think such jokes good mannersin any other person's house, and I told him so.But he said their ridiculous gravity makes thetemptation too strong to be resisted. If theywould jest good-humouredly in return, he said, theywould soon understand each other. But wouldthey? I am not quite sure how Sir Launcelotenjoys not having the best of a joke. And I couldnot bear his calling the Puritans all canting, orridiculous. He knows better. And I told him so. I feltquite indignant, and the tears were in my eyes (forI thought of them all at Netherby). He seemedpenitent. Indeed, I hope it did him good.

"June.—The Parliament are growing more insolentevery day; they dared to say in one of theirridiculous Remonstrances that 'the king is for thekingdom, not the kingdom for the king, thateven the crown jewels are not His Majesty'sown, but given him in trust for the regalpower.' However, they will soon learn their mistake aboutthat, for the crown-jewels are safe in Holland, andhave there purchased for the Crown good store ofarms and ammunition. These were all embarkedin a Dutch ship called theProvidence. A greatProvidence, my Mother says, attended her. Foralthough she was wrecked on the coast of Yorkshire,nevertheless, all her stores have this day beensafely brought into York.

"Now we shall see what gentlemen can do againsttapsters, and tailors' and haberdashers' 'prentices,such as make up the wretched army they have beenmustering in London! The citizens' wives actuallybrought their thimbles and bodkins, it is said, topay the men; to such mean and ludicrous straitsare they reduced. The Cavaliers call it 'theThimble and Bodkin Army.'

"July 20.—Sir John Hotham is said to be waveringback to loyalty. A day or two since, a gallantlittle army of four thousand men rode forth hencethrough the Mickle Bar, to demand the surrenderof that presumptuous city, Hull, and if refused, tostorm it. Better they had listened to His Majesty'sgentle summons with his three hundred. Howgallant and brave they looked. Plumed helmetsgleaming swords flashing, pennons flying, horseslooking as proud of the cause as the riders. Not acavalier among them who would not face battle asgayly as the hunting-field.

"July 22.—Those treacherous townspeople! Nota troop of them is to be relied on. Our gallantCavaliers came back in disorder. And all becauseof the faithless train-bands, and those turbulentcitizens of Hull. Lord Lindsay, with three thousandmen, was at Beverley, and on the lighting of a fireon Beverley Minster, the gates of Hull were to beopened by some loyal men inside. But five hundredrebels within the town, hearing too soon of theintention of these loyal men, made a sortie under thecommand of Sir John Hotham. The true Cavalierswould have stood firm, every one says, but theYorkshire train-bands would not draw swordagainst their neighbours, but ran away to Beverley,and so the whole ended in disgrace and defeat. Ifwe could only have an army entirely composed ofgentlemen, and their sons, and retainers, theParliament could not stand a day. But the worst newsthat has reached us lately, is the treachery of theEarl of Warwick and the navy. They have allgone over to the Parliament, in spite of the king'soffering them better pay than they ever receivedbefore. Five ships stood firm at first, but the restoverpowered them. I hope no one ever told themabout their being called 'water-rats,' but there arealways some malicious people who delight to makemischief by telling tales. I should think royalpersons ought to be very careful about their jests.

"August.—We are on the point of leaving Yorkto spend a few days at Nottingham, where theking's standard is to be set up.

"I am not sorry to leave this old town. I miss thepleasant walks at home. For here one dare scarceventure much out of doors. If the Cavaliers are asdangerous to their enemies as they are sometimes totheir friends, the Parliament has good cause totremble. The streets echo dismally at night withthe shouts of drunken revelry. But, I suppose, allarmies are alike. Only it is rather unfortunate forus that gravity and the show of piety being thebadge of the Puritans, levity and a reckless dashingcarriage are taken up as their badge by many ofthe young Cavaliers.

"I would they took example by the king. HisMajesty has been riding around the country latelyhimself, calling his lieges to follow him. And hismajestic courtesy and grace, with his loving andwinning speeches, such as he made at Newark andLincoln, showing his good intentions and desiresfor their liberty and welfare, must, I am sure, beworth him a mint of such money as the Londoncitizens can coin out of their thimbles and bodkins.

"The North country is well disposed, they say;and Lancashire, where the queen hath much hold onthe Catholic gentlemen of ancient lineage there;and the West country, where brave Sir Bevil Granvilllives, is full of loyalty. Mr. Hampden hasdone mischief in Buckinghamshire, and Mr. Cromwell(a brewer, Sir Launcelot says, rather thana country-gentleman, though not of low parentage)calls himself captain, and is disaffecting theeastern counties, already disloyal enough, with theirFrench Huguenot weavers, and their 'Anabaptists,Atheists, and Brownists,' as His Majesty callsthem.

"The towns are the worst, however. I supposethere is something in buying and selling, andtinkering and tailoring, which makes people think moreof mean money considerations, than of loyalty andhonour. Then there are so many Puritans in thetown. Perhaps the narrow dark high streets makethem naturally inclined to be gloomy and strait-laced.I think, however, the less our Cavalier soldiersare quartered in the towns, the better, till theymend their manners. It may make the citizens lesspleased than ever with the Book of Sports.

"Nottingham, August 23.—This evening the kinghimself set up his standard on the top of the fieldbehind the castle. There was much sounding ofdrums and trumpets. Several hundreds gatheredaround the royal party, and we watched a little wayoff. But, I know not how, the act did not seem assolemn as the occasion. The night was stormy;and the trumpets and drums, and then the voice ofthe herald reading the royal proclamation, soundedsmall and thin against the rush and howling of thewinds. The troops have not yet answered theking's call as they should, and those present weremostly the train-bands. Then His Majesty, on thespot, made some alterations in the proclamation,which perplexed the herald, so that he blunderedand stumbled in reading it. Altogether I wish Ihad not been there.

"The king's standard ought to be somethingmore than a pole no higher than a May-pole witha few streamers, and a common flag at the top.And the trumpets which are to rouse a nation,ought to have a certain magnificence in them,altogether different from the trumpets they blow at thecarols at Netherby at Christmas. I am sure Icannot tell how. But I always pictured it so. Thewords are grander than the things.

"Perhaps all our pomps and solemnities look poorand mean under the open sky. We had better keepthem beneath roofs of our own making. The pompswe are used to under the open sky are the purpleand crimson and gold of sunset and sunrise, greatbanners of storm-clouds flung across the sky. Andthe solemnities are the thunders, and the mightywinds, and the rushing of rivers, and the dashingof seas.

"The things are grander, infinitely, than anywords wherewith we can speak of them.

"But when I said so to my Mother, she said,'And yet, my child, one soul, and even one humanvoice, is grander, or more godlike than all thethunders. It is their significance, Lettice, whichgives the grandeur to any solemnities of ours. Ifwe heard those trumpets summon our countrymenby thousands to the battle, or saw that flag borneblood-stained from the field, we should not thinkthe voice of the trumpet wanted terrible magnificence,or call the flag a common thing ever more.'

"Perhaps, after all, it was only a little inwarddepression that made me feel this disappointment.For only three days before, Coventry had shut hergates in the king's face, and the Earl of Essex is athand, they say, with a great army, and so few flockingloyally to the king.

"But worst of all, I think, is this Prince Rupert.His mother's name, Elizabeth of Bohemia, has beenlike a sacred name in the country for years; a saintand a heroine in courage and patience. But thisprince is so noisy and reckless, and takes so muchupon himself, that he angers the older gentlemenand experienced soldiers sorely. My Father sayshe is little better than a petulant boy. Yet he hasgreat weight with the king, his uncle, and takes thecommand into his own hands; so that the gallantold Earl of Lindsay deems his own command littlebetter than nominal. And, meanwhile, the youngerCavaliers take their colour from him, and use thatnew low cant word of his, 'plunder,' quite as a jest,as if it meant some new sport or sword-exercise,instead of meaning, as it does, scouring all over thecountry, burning lonely farm-houses, robbing theinmates, and sometimes hanging the servants at thedoors for refusing to betray their masters, sackingvillages, and I know not what other wickednesses.In the fortnight he has been here, he has flownthrough Worcestershire, Nottinghamshire,Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and Cheshire. And nota night but we have seen the sky aglow with thefires of burning villages and homesteads. I shouldfear to hear how the people along his line of march,coming back to their ruined homes, speak of theking.

"Moreover, it is said, the rebel troops are strictlyforbidden to take anything without paying for it,a contrast worth them much.

"August 24.—This morning, before I rose, myMother's waiting gentlewoman brought dismalnews. The royal standard, said she, has been blowndown in the night, and lies a wreck along thehill.

"My Mother says it is heathenish to talk ofomens and auguries. And my Father says theseforeigners are the worst omen, and all would bewell enough if they would leave Englishmen tofight out their own quarrels, like neighbours, whoexchange blows and are friends again, instead oflike wretched hired Lanzknechts or Free Companions.

"But Sir Launcelot laughs, and says it is a goodthing to give the whining Puritans something tocry for at last. And Harry sighs, and says hesupposes it is necessary to make the rebels see we arein earnest.

"Altogether, we do not seem in very good humourwith each other just now. However, a fewvictories will no doubt set us all right again. Therecan be no reasonable doubt that the king will bringthese rebels to their senses sooner or later; in a fewmonths at latest.

"Only I had not understood at all how verymelancholy war is. I thought of it as concerningno one but the soldiers. And men must incurdanger one way or another. And there is the glory,and the excitement, and the exercise of noblecourage, making such men as nothing but such trialscan make.

"But the battles seem but a small part of themisery; the misery without glory to any one.

"On our way hither from York, my Mother wasfaint and tired, and we stopped at a little farm-housewith an orchard. It was evening, and the womanhad just finished milking the cows by the door, andshe gave my Mother a cup of new milk while sherested on the settle in the clean little kitchen.There were two little children playing about, andthe father was at work in the orchard, and one ofthe children called him, and he brought my Fathera cup of cider. And there was a Bible on thetable with wood-cuts; and I found the eldest childknew the meaning of them. He said his father hadtold him. They were very kind and pleasantto us.

"And a few days since Harry told me they hadpassed a little farm with an orchard, and the manwas surly and a Puritan, and refused to tell the waysome fugitives had fled; and Prince Rupert hadhim hanged on his own threshold, and drove offthe cows for plunder.

"And I have scarcely slept since, thinking ofthat poor man, and the silent voice that will neverany more explain the wood-cuts in the old Bible,and the poor hands that will never show theirwilling hospitality again.

"But it is only one, Harry says, among hundreds;and such things must be, and I must not thinkof it.

"But every one of the hundreds is just that terribleonly one, which leaves the world all lonely tosome poor mourner!

"Why did not Mr. Hampden pay a thousandtimes his miserable ship-money rather than lead thecountry on to such horrors?

"For the king cannot have his commandsdisobeyed. If he did, how could he be a king?

"I do wish he could be more a king with his owntroops; I am sure he hates this ravaging andmarauding. But so many of the gentlemen serve, and,indeed, keep their regiments at their own cost,which makes them difficult to control.

"October.—Prince Rupert has been driven fromWorcester. If it were only a lesson in reverenceand modesty for the prince, it would not so muchmatter, some think, that he left twenty good andtrue men dead there. The Earl of Essex occupiesthe city. He has been there a fortnight doingnothing. Some remnants of loyalty, we think,hinder him from coming to open collision. Butwhat the use of collecting an army can be unless itis to fight, it is hard to see. The truth is, perhaps,that he begins to feel the peril of setting hishaberdashers and grocers' 'prentices, commanded by aforsworn peer, against gentlemen's sons fightingunder their king! Meantime, our army is gatheringat last, and only too eager, they say, to givethe rebels a lesson. Once for all, God grant it be alesson once for all. Although the battles do notseem to me half so dreadful as these 'plunderings.' Butperhaps that is because I never came near abattle; nor, indeed, can the oldest man in Englandremember any one that ever did on English soil."

All through the summer the armies were gathering.In our seven eastern counties—Essex, Norfolk,Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincoln, Huntingdonshire,and Hertfordshire—called the associatedcounties, because bound by Mr. Hampden andMr. Cromwell into an association for mutual defence, theKing's Commission of Array and the Parliament'sOrdinance of Militia clashed less than elsewhere.In August Mr. Cromwell seized a magazine of armsand ammunition at Cambridge. The stronghold ofthe Puritans was in these eastern regions; andexcept where a few Royalist gentlemen, like theDavenants, led off their retainers, the Parliamenthad, amongst us, mostly its own way. All themore reason, my Father said, for our men to risktheir persons, since our homes were safer than elsewhere.

My Father, from his old military experience, hadmuch to do with training and drilling the men.Strange sounds of clanging arms and sharp wordsof command echoed from the old court of theManor. Old arms, the very stories belonging towhich were well-nigh forgotten, were taken down;arms which had hung on the walls of manor-houseand farm-house since the Wars of the Roses. Thenewest weapon we had at Netherby which hadseen service in England was a short jewel-hiltedsword the Drayton of the day had worn at theBattle of Bosworth Field, fighting, by a rare pieceof good luck for us, under Henry VII., on the winningside. Since then the Reformation had revolutionizedthe Church, and gunpowder had revolutionizedthe art of war; so that instead of the sturdybow-men, each provided with his weapon and readytrained to the use of it, whom his ancestors broughtto the field, my Father could only muster a fewlabourers and servants, without weapons and withouttraining, with no further preparation for warthan hands used to labour, wits ready to learn, andhearts ready to dare.

My Father did not mean to lead his own men.Having had experience of engineering in theGerman wars, he was employed here and there as hisdirections were needed. Roger and those whowent from Netherby served from the first withMr. Cromwell's Ironsides; my Father, as his contribution,providing the armour, which, like that ofHaselrigge's Lobsters, was complete and costly. Otherbands passed and repassed often, and shared thehospitalities of the Manor, to join Lord Brook'spurple-coats, Lord Say and Lord Mandeville'sbluecoats. Hollis' red-coats were London men, andMr. Hampden's green-coats all from his own county,Buckinghamshire; while the badge of all was theorange scarf round the arm—the family colours ofLord Essex, the general. Each regiment had itsown motto—Hampden's, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum;"Essex's (pointing many a cavalier jest, if seen inplunder or retreat), "Cave adsum." On the reverseof each banner was the common motto of all, "Godwith us"—the watch-word of so many a battle.

Money was not stinted; the city of London headingthe contributions in January with £50,000, andthe Merchants' Companies with nigh as large a sum(then intended to avenge the Irish massacre); whilstMr. Hampden gave £1000, and his cousin,Mr. Cromwell, £500.

Women brought their rings and jewels; cherishedold family plate was not held back. We in oursober Puritan household had few jewels to bring,but such as we had were disinterred from theircaskets, and the few silver drinking-cups whichdistinguished our table from any farmers round werepacked up by Aunt Dorothy's own hands, anddespatched to the London Guildhall, not without sighs,but without hesitation, with all the money thatcould be spared.

Cousin Placidia also offered what she called her"mite," when she heard that the poor citizens'wives in London had even offered their thimblesand bodkins.

"I am but a poor parson's wife," said she, "butI am thankful they will receive even such poorofferings as I can bring."

And she brought those embroidered Cordovagloves, the search for which had so incensed AuntDorothy.

"It is remarkable," she observed, "that I alwayssaid one never knew what use anything might bein a poor parson's household; and now I havefound the use."

"What use, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy; "doyou think the Parliament soldiers will fight inembroidered gloves?"

"Spanish leather is dear," replied Placidia, "andthings will always sell. It is only a poor mite Iknow, but so is a thimble. The Parliament soldierscannot, of course, fight in thimbles any more thanin gloves, and the widow's mite was accepted."

"A mite and the 'widow's mite,' are some wayapart, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy; "your 'widow'smite,' I suppose, might be the parsonage and theglebe, and those cows in your uncle's park andmeadow. Take care what you offer to the Lord.He sometimes takes us at our word. And there areplunderers abroad who take their own estimate ofpeople's mites, widows' and others."

"Aunt Dorothy, Mr. Nicholls and I regard theglebe as a sacred trust, of which we feel we muston no account relinquish the smallest fraction. Andas to the cows Uncle Drayton gave me, I wonderyou can suspect me of such ingratitude as to givethem up to any one."

"I did not, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy,quietly. "What shall I label your Cordova gloves?A parson's mite? You know I cannot exactly say'widow's.'"

"Very well, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy; "Ishould think that would affect the Parliament verymuch. It may even get into history."

Happily for the popular cause, the commoninterpretation of acceptable 'mites' differed fromPlacidia's, so that in a short time a considerable armywas levied.

The navy ever remained true to the Parliament;irritated, some foolish persons said, by a report thatthe king had called them "water-rats." As wellsay the whole Parliament stood firm, because theking once compared them to cats. The navy hadits own watchwords, better pointed than by thesting of a sorry jest. English seamen were notlikely to trust too implicitly to the promises of theSovereign who had tried to sell them to aid in thedestruction of the brave little band of beleagueredProtestants at Rochelle.

All through the summer the armies were beinglevied, and the breach was silently widening.

In July an incident showed, my Father said, asmuch as anything could, how entirely the king'smind was unchanged, and how "thorough" wouldhave been the tyranny established in his hands,though Laud, and Strafford, and the Queen, andevery violent councillor, had been removed. Myold friend, Dr. Bastwick, the physician, was seizedby the royal forces at Worcester while engaged inlevying men for the Parliament, under Earl Stamford,who retreated. It was with the greatest difficultythat one of the judges restrained the kingfrom having him hanged on the spot althoughthere could be no reason why he should have beensentenced with this exceptional severity exceptthe fact that he had already been scourged,pilloried, and maimed by the cruelty of the Star-Chamber.

The deep distrust which such indications of theking's true mind produced, cost him more thanmany lost battles.

They tended to inspire such resistances as thatmade a few weeks afterwards by the bravecommoners of Coventry, when, without garrison,without engineers, with no defence but their feebleancient walls, they shut their gates in the Sovereign'sface, defied the royal forces, and when the breachwas made by artillery in the old tottering walls,barricaded the streets with barrows and carts, madea sally, carried the nearest lines, seized the guns,and turned them against the besiegers, compellingthem at last to retire baffled.

But it was Prince Rupert, "the Prince Robber,"who, perhaps, more than any, turned the hearts ofthe people against the Sovereign who could usesuch an instrument. Trained in the cruel schoolof the Palatinate wars, he had read its terriblelessons the wrong way; having learned from thesufferings of his father's subjects not pity, but asavage recklessness of suffering. He brought home tohundreds of burning villages and plundered lonelyfarms, which no Parliamentary remonstrances ordeclarations would have reached, the convictionthat the king looked on his people, not as a flock,but as mere live-stock on an estate, to be kept up ifprofitable and manageable, and if not to be sacrificedto any system of management which gave lesstrouble and brought in more profit.

"Whose own the sheep ore not," was written in theashes of every home ruined by Prince Rupert in theking's service.

With these deeds the people contrasted thewell-kept orders of the Parliament to Lord Essex."You shall carefully restrain all impieties, profaneness,and disorders, violence, insolence, and plunderingin your soldiers, as well by strict and severepunishment of such offences as by all others meanswhich you in your wisdom shall think fit."

And we grew to think that whoever the trueshepherd and king of the people might be, it wasscarcely one who employed the wolf for a sheepdog.

It was but slowly and reluctantly that thisconviction grew on the nation. Those who look backon the king's life, hallowed by the shadow of hisdeath, little know how slowly and reluctantly. Wewould fain have trusted him if he would have letus. The nation tried it again and again, and onlytoo much was sacrificed before they would believeit was in vain. Still there had been no battle.The Earl of Essex, after following the Prince fromWorcester, lingered there three weeks, doingnothing. No battle worth the name for nearly ahundred and seventy years, until Sunday the 23d ofOctober, 1642.

Then came the first great shock. All that Sundayafternoon our countrymen, husbands, brothers,fathers, sons of the women left in the quiet villagesat home, were fighting in the desperate struggle forlife and death, until at night four thousand Englishmenlay dead on the slopes of Edgehill, or dying inthe villages around—the day before as tranquil andpeaceful as ours.

I remember there was a peculiar quiet about thatSunday at Netherby. So many of the men of thevillage had gone to the war. Roger had been awaymany weeks, and my Father had left some daysbefore to join Lord Essex at Worcester. In all ourhousehold there were no men left except Bob theherdsman. The church was strangely deserted.The Hall pew empty. Scarcely one deep manlyvoice in response or psalm. On the benches in thevillage a few old men had an unwonted monopolyof talk, and the lads on anything like the vergeof manhood strode heavily about with a new senseof importance. One asked another for news. Butthere was none, save rumours of mysterious marchingsand counter-marchings of troops, without anyaim that we knew, or the echo of some far-off forayof Prince Rupert's. There was a dreamy stillnessall around. Tib's voice came up alone from thekitchen as she moved about some Sabbath work ofnecessity, and sung rather uncertainly snatches ofthe psalm we had sung at prayers in the morning.From the slope where the house stood (which gaveus that wide range over the levels which I misseverywhere else), I saw the cattle feeding far off inthe marshy lands, too far for any sound of theirvoices to reach me. The harvest was over on thenearer slopes, so that there was no music of thewind rustling through the corn. The land lay halfslumbering in its autumn rest, like Roger's faithfulLion in his Sunday afternoon sleep on the terracebelow. But, I knew not why, there seemed to mea kind of expectancy in this calm. A waiting andlistening seemed to palpitate through this stillnessof the land such as pervaded Lion's slumbers as hecouched, quivering at every sound, vainly waitingfor Roger's voice to summon him as usual at thishour for a walk in the fields.

The feeling grew on me, till all this quiet seemednot as the rest after a calm, but the calm before astorm; and the silence excited in me as if it werethe breathless hush of thousands of beating hearts.

Then I thought of Rachel Forster in her lonelyhome. And it was a relief to rise at once and go toher. Her door was open. She was sitting beforethe old Bible. It was open, but she was not reading.Her hands were clashed on her knees. Therewas a stillness on her face as great as that over thecountry. But in this calm there was somethingthat calmed me.

It seemed to me conscious and victorious, notdreamlike, and liable at any moment to a terriblewaking.

"Can we wonder, Mistress Olive?" said she."Do we not know what we might be giving themup for?"

"This quietness of the world seems awful to meto-day, Rachel," said I, "but in you there issomething that quiets me. You find peace in prayerRachel," said I. "Is it not that?"

"I scarce know whether it is prayer, MistressOlive. It is nothing but going to the Rock that ishigher than I, and taking all that is precious to methere, and staying there. It is just creeping to thefoot of the Cross, and keeping there."

"I know something terrible must come," she said,with a tremulousness in her voice which was morefrom enthusiasm than from fear. "To-day, orto-morrow, or some day. For the Day of Vengeanceis come; and the year of His redeemed is athand."

"Oh, Rachel," I said, "I cannot silently rest asyou do. I want words, entreaties for Roger, formy Father, for Job, and also for the good men who,if the battle comes, must die on the wrong side,and for the king; the king who, if he would but betrue, might set all right again."

And she knelt down and prayed in words briefand burning, like the prayers in the Bible.

"You do not feel it too lonely here, Rachel?" Isaid as I left, "Why not come up to us? Yourpresence would be like a strong wall and fortressto me."

"I am less lonesome here, Mistress Olive," saidshe. "Job made so many little plans to spare metrouble before he went. I see his hand everywhere.There is the pile of wood close to the fire, and thelittle pipe carrying the water to the very door. Itwould seem like making light of his work not to useit all. And besides," she added, "there's a few poortried folk who used to look to Job for a good wordand a good turn, and now some of them look to me.And I could not fail them for the world."

As I wished her good-bye, and walked home andthought of her, a glorious new sense came on me ofthe strength there is in waiting on God, of thepossibility of the feeblest who lean on him being notonly sustained, but becoming themselves strong tosustain others.

When I went to see Rachel, the whole solid worldhad seemed to me, in my anxiety for the preciouslives I could do nothing to preserve, but as sometreacherous and quaking ground among our marshes,ready to sink down and overwhelm, us, beneaththe weight of our passing footsteps.

As I returned, the world, though in itself astransitory and uncertain as ever, was once more a solidpathway to me, because underneath it stood thefoundation of an Almighty love, one word fromwhom was stronger and more enduring than all theworlds.

So we sang our evening psalm, and slept quietlythat night at Netherby, knowing nothing of the fourthousand pale and rigid corpses that lay stretchedon the blood-stained battle-slopes at Edgehill, whileLord Essex encamped on the silent battle-field, andthe king's watch-fires were kindled on the hill above,where he began the day, and no ground was gainedon either side; only the lives of four thousand menlost.

In the tongues of men, we speak of lives loston battle-fields: perhaps in the tongue of angelsthey speak of lives lost in easy and luxurioushomes.

CHAPTER VIII.

It was not till mid-day on Monday the24th of October 1642, that the firsttidings reached us of Keinton Fight, or,as some call it, the Battle of Edgehill.Tidings indeed they scarcely were, only rumours,as of far-off thunder faintly moaning through theheat and stillness of a summer's noon, mysterious,uncertain, scarcely louder than the hum of insectsin the sunshine, yet almost more awful than thecrash of the thunder-peal overhead. "Wars andrumours of wars." Until that Monday I had noconception of the significance of that word"rumours." I had anticipated the sudden shocks, theruthless desolations of war; I had not thought of itsterrible uncertainties, its heart-sickening suspenses.

At noon, when the few men left in the villagewere all away in the fields at work, a travellingtinker passed by who that morning about daybreakhad done some work at a farm where the swineherdkeeping his swine the evening before, on the edgeof a beech-forest some miles to the south, had heardthe sounds far off in the south-west, in the directionof Oxford, like the thunder of great guns, and thesharp cracking of musketry.

The tinker did what tinkering was needed in thevillage, in the absence of Job the village smith,and went on his way. Just after he left, AuntGretel and I went to take broken meat and brothto two or three sick and aged people, and we foundall the women gathered around the black and silentforge, or rather around Rachel, while she sat quietlypatching in the porch of the cottage; the latticed,narrow cottage-windows letting in too little lightfor any work that required to be neatly done.

An eager excited crowd it was, the scanty measureof the text only furnishing wider margin forthe commentary. Rachel, meanwhile, sat quietlyin the middle, like a mother among a number ofeager chattering children.

As we reached the group, poor Margery, Dickon'syoung wife, with her child in her arms, half-sobbed,—

"I wonder, Rachel, thee can bear to go on stitch,stitch. Since the news came I have been all of atremble thinking of my goodman, who went offwith yourn. I couldn't bring my fingers togetherto hold a needle, do what I would."

"I don't know that I could well bear it withoutthe stitching, neighbour," said Rachel, softly."When trouble is come, we may well sit still andweep. The Lord calls us to it. But in the waiting-timesI see nought for it but to brace up the heartand work."

When we came, all turned to tell us of the dreadrumour. Aunt Gretel brought one or two cheeringstories of providence and deliverance out of theeventful histories of her youth; and then we wenton our errands, Aunt Gretel thinking we should domore to soothe and quiet these agitated hearts bythe example of steadily pursuing our task, than bythe wisest talking in the world.

"For," said she, "the true tidings have yet tocome; and they are like to be sad enough to some.And how will they bear it, if all the strength iswasted before-hand in vain and mournful guesses?"

The result proved her right, for when our basketswere emptied, and Aunt Gretel returned home, whileI went to see Rachel again, the village was stirringas usual with quiet sounds of labour in house afterhouse, and the excited group around the porch haddispersed. Only poor Margery lingered, Rachelhaving found her occupation in lighting the fire andpreparing supper, to save her returning to her lonelycottage; while the baby crowed and kicked on theground at Rachel's feet.

"But, Rachel," I said, "would it not have quietedthe neighbours to pray together, you with them?"

"Maybe, sweetheart," she said. "But I did notfeel I could. If the news is true, the fight is over.It's over hours since. The dead are lying cold, outof the reach of our prayers. And the living aresaved and are giving thanks; and the wounded arewrithing in their anguish, and we know not whois dead, or wounded, or whole. And when welook to the earth to think, it comes over us like arush of dark waters when the dykes are pierced. SoI can but look to heaven and work. It's light andnot dark where He sitteth. And beyond the thundersand the lightnings He is caring for us in thegreat calm of the upper sky. Caring for us,sweetheart, as the poor mother cares for this babe; notsitting on a throne and smiling like the king in thepicture, with both hands full of his sceptre and hisbauble; but with both hands free, to help and touphold. So I try to do the bit of work He sets me,and to look up to Him and feel, 'There is no fearbut that Thou wilt do the work Thou hast setThyself; and that is, to care for us all.' And I toldthe neighbours they had best try the same."

The words were scarcely out of her lips, when ahorseman came clattering down the village andstopped at Job's well-known forge.

"What news?" asked a score of voices one afteranother, as the women crowded round him.

"Dismal news enough for some, and glorious forothers," he said. "The king's army and LordEssex's met yesterday. Lord Essex below in theVale of the Red Horse, and the king on Edgehillabove. Prince Rupert charged down on theParliament horse, under Commissary-General Ramsay,broke them in a trice, and pursued them to Keinton,killing and plundering. I heard it from one of therouted horsemen who escaped. Everything is lost,he said, for Lord Essex, and I hasten to carry thenews to one who loves the king."

Hastily draining Rachel's can of home-brewed ale,he was off in a minute, and out of sight.

All through the afternoon confused and contradictorynews continued to drop in from one andanother. But it was not till the next day (Tuesday)that we could collect anything like a true accountof the battle,—how for hours, all through thenoon-tide of that autumn Sunday, the two armies hadcouched, like two terrible beasts of prey, watchingeach other; the king on the height, and Essex inthe plain—as if loth to break with the murderousroar of cannon our England's two centuries ofpeace.

Prayers, no doubt, there were, many and deep,breaking that silence, to the ear of God; but few,perhaps, better than that of gallant Sir JacobAshley, one of the king's major-generals: "Lord,Thou knowest I must be busy this day; if I forgetThee, do not Thou forget me."

Who began the fight at last, we could not wellmake out. The most part said Lord Essex, directinga sally up the hill, which Prince Rupertanswered by dashing down like a torrent, from theroyal vantage-ground to the plain, on the left wingof the Parliament army. The men fell or fled onall sides before his furious charge; and he pursuedthem to the village of Keinton, where Lord Essexhad encamped the day before. Deeming the daywon, his men gave themselves up to plundering thebaggage, and slaughtering the wagoners andunarmed labourers. But meantime Sir WilliamBalfour, on the right wing, charged the king's left,broke it, seized and spiked many of the king's guns,took the royal standard after a struggle which leftsixty brave men dead in sixty yards around it, anddrove nearly the whole royal army to their morning'sposition up the hill. There they rallied. PrinceRupert returned, laden with his blood-stained plunder,to find the king's army in confusion. Butdarkness was setting in; it is said the Parliamentgun-powder began to fail; so no further pursuitwas made, and on Sunday night again both armiesencamped on the ground where they had begun thebattle. The king's camp-fires blazed on the hill,and the Parliament's in the Vale of the Red Horse.But between them lay four thousand dead Englishmen,—thatSabbath morning full of life and courage,now lying stiff and helpless on the quiet slopeswhere they had fallen in the tumult of the mortalconflict.

It is said, most of those who fell on the king'sside fell standing firm, and of ours running away;which means, I suppose, that they lost their bravest,and we our cowards.

I found my Father, and many of the soldiers Iknow, always loth to speak much of the battle-fieldafter a battle. My Father and Roger woulddiscuss by the hour the handling of troops and thestrategy of the commanders, and all which relatedto war as an art or a science, and regarded thetroops as pieces on a board. But of the after-misery,when the terrible excitement and the skillfulmanœuvres of the day were over, and the troopsand regiments had again become only men, wounded,weary, dead, I never heard them to speak save in afew broken words.

The difference of language served a little to veilthe common humanity in the German wars, myFather said; but to hear the fallen entreating forquarter, or the dying calling on God and on dearfamiliar names, or the wounded praying for helpwhich, in the rush of the battle, could not be given,in the old mother-tongue, was enough, he said, totake all the pomp and glory out of war, and to leaveit nothing but its agony and its horror.

Both sides claimed the victory,—Lord Essex byright of encamping on the field, and the king (somesaid) by the weight of Prince Rupert's plunder.

However that might be, neither side pursued theadvantage they both boasted to have gained.

The king, who was between the Parliament armyand London, to the great anxiety of the city, didnot advance, but retired on Oxford,—the Parliamentgarrison of Banbury, however, surrenderingto him without a struggle.

Lord Essex made no pursuit, but withdrawing toLondon, left the country open to Prince Rupert'sforagers.

But victory or defeat were scarcely the chiefquestions to us women that day at Netherby.

Margery's anxieties were the first relieved. Herhusband Dickon being in the king's army, sent heran orange scarf taken from a Parliament horsemanat Keinton, in token of his safety.

Then, on Wednesday, poor Tim, Gammer Grindle'shalf-witted grandson, who would, in spite ofall that could be said, follow Roger to the war,came limping into the village, emaciated and footsore,with his arm bound up in a sling. He stoppedat Rachel Forster's door, and began stammering aconfused account of Master Roger and Job lyingwounded at Keinton, and the prince's men murderingsome of the wounded, and carrying off Roger andJob, pinioned, in a cart to gaol, and Tim's trying tofollow on foot, and having his arm broken by amusket-shot, and his leg wounded, and so, beingleft behind, having limped home to tell MistressOlive.

But where the gaol was, or how severe Roger'swound was, or Job's, could in no way be extractedfrom poor Tim's confused brain and tongue! "PoorTim!" he said, apologising with broken words, as afaithful dog might with wistful looks, for havingescaped without his master, "Poor Tim tried hardto follow Master Roger—tried hard! Master Rogerknows Tim did not wish to leave him; MasterRoger knows. Master Roger said, 'Tim, you'vedone all you could. Go home. And tell themMaster Roger's all right.'" When first he saw Rachel,he said, "Poor Job said, 'Take care!'" And thenclenching his hand, with a smile, "Poor Tim tookcare!" But he never repeated or explained it. Itwas quite useless to question him. That onepurpose of obeying Roger possessed the whole of hispoor brain. The poor creature was faint from painand weariness, and loss of blood. Rachel wouldhave made him a bed in the cottage, and not oneof us at Netherby but would have counted it anhonour to have nursed him for his love to Roger;but he shook his head: 'Master Roger said, 'Tim,you've done all you could. Go home.'" And nothingwould satisfy him but to go on to the hovelby the Mere, were his grandmother lived.

Gammer Grindle was a poor, wizened, old woman,soured by much trouble and by the constant frettingof a sharp temper against poverty and wrong, untilfew in the village liked to venture near her. Indeed,there were dark suspicious afloat about her. Manya labouring-man would have gone a mile roundrather than pass her door after dusk, and many ayeoman-farmer and goodwife who had lost an unusualnumber of sheep or poultry would propitiateher by the present of a lamb or a fat pullet. And,in general, in the neighbourhood she was spoken ofwith a reverent terror much akin to that of the manwho, after hastily using the name of the devil,crossed himself, and said, "May he pardon me fortaking his holy name in vain."

But Roger and I happened to have come acrossher on another and very different side. In ourfishing expeditions on the Mere her grandson Tim hadoften followed us with the fish-basket or tackle;and the rare contrast of Roger's kindly tones andwords with the jeerings of the rough boys in thevillage, had won him in Tim's heart an affectionintense, absorbing, disinterested, and entirely freefrom demand of return or hope of reward; morelike that of a faithful dog than of a human beingwith purposes and interests of his own.

This had given us access to his grandmother'shovel, and many a time she had saved me from theconsequences of Aunt Dorothy's just wrath bykindling up her poor embers of fire to dry my soakedshoes, and cleaning the mud from my clothes. Simpleeasy services, but such as made it altogetherimpossible for Roger and me to regard the poor, kind,shrivelled hands that had rendered them as havingsigned a compact with Satan. Besides, did we notsee how good she was, with all her scoldings, toTim, and know from broken words which haddropped now and then how she had loved her onlydaughter, the mother of Cicely and Tim, and howsore her heart was for the poor, lost girl, and whata power of wronged and disappointed love layseething and fermenting beneath the sour sharpwords she spoke?

Roger and I knew that Gammer Grindle was nooutlaw from the pale of humanity by seeing it;and Rachel Forster knew it, I believe, by seeingHim at whose feet so many outcasts from humansympathy found a welcome. And so it happened,that of all the village no one but Rachel, Roger andI sought access, or would have had it, to GammerGrindle's hovel, so that Rachel that dayaccompanied Tim home, and was permitted to share hisgrandmother's watch that night.

For Tim's exhaustion soon changed to deliriousfever, as his wound began to be inflamed, and itwas as much as both the women could do to keephim from rushing out of the hovel to "followMaster Roger."

All the time, they noticed he kept the hand ofhis unwounded arm firmly clenched over something.But no coaxing or commands, even from hisgrandmother's voice, which he was so used to obey,would induce him to unclasp his hand or let it go.

All that night and the next day the two womenwatched by the poor lad, bathing his head, andtrying vainly to keep him still. But towards eveninghis strength began to fail, and it was plain that thefever, having done its work, was relinquishing itshold to the cold grasp of Another stronger than it.

The poor lad's delirious entreaties ceased, and helay so still, that Rachel could hear the cold ripplesof the Mere outside plashing softly among therushes, stirred by the night wind; and they soundedto her like the slow waters of the river ofDeath.

Only now and then he said, in a low voice, like achild crooning to itself, "Poor Tim, Master Rogerknows. Master Roger said, you have done all youcould. Go home."

Once also his eye brightened, and he said, "Cicely,sister Cicely! Tell her to come soon—soon. Ihave watched for her so long!"

Rachel tried to speak to him about Jesus, theloving Master of us all; he did not object, butwhether he understood or not, she could not tell.He did not alter the words which had been soengraven on his poor faithful heart. Only they grewfainter and fainter, and fewer and more broken,until, with one sigh, "Master—home," the poorfeeble spirit departed, and the poor feeble body wasat rest.

But Rachel said it seemed to her as if the blessedLord would most surely not fail to understand thepoor lad who could not understand about Him, yethad served so faithfully the best he knew. And shealmost thought she heard a voice from heaven saying,"Poor Tim! the Master knows. You havedone the best you could. Come home!"

It was not until the poor lad was dead that theyfound what he had been so tightly clasping in hishand.

It was a fragment of paper containing a fewwords written by Job Forster, of which Tim hadindeed "taken care," as the clasp of the lifeless handproved too well.

"Rachel, be of good cheer, as I am. I am hurton the shoulder, but not so bad. They are takingme with Roger to Oxford goal. His wound is inthe side, painful at first, but Dr. Antony got theball out, and says he will do well. Thee must notfret, nor try to come to us. It would hurt thee anddo us no good. The Lord careth."

Rachel read this letter, with every word madeemphatic, by her certainty that Job would make aslight as possible of any trouble, by her knowledgethat his pen was not that of a ready writer, andby her sense of what she would have done herselfin similar circumstances.

"Rachel!"—the word, she knew, had taken hima minute or two to spell out, and it meant a wholevolume of esteem and love; and by the samemeasure, "hurt" meant "disabled;" and "not sobad," simply not in immediate peril of life; and"thee must not come," to her heart meant "come ifthou canst, though I dare not bid thee."

It was not Rachel's way to let trouble make herhelpless, or even prevent her being helpful whereshe was needed. God, she was sure, had not meantit for that. She lived at the door of the House ofthe Lord, and therefore, at this sudden alarm, shedid not need a long pilgrimage by an untroddenpath to reach the sanctuary. A moment to laydown the burden and enter the open door, and liftup the heart there within; and then to the duty inhand. She remained, therefore, with GammerGrindle until they had laid the poor faithful ladin his shroud; then she gave all the needful ordersfor the burial, so that it was not till dusk she wasseated in her own cottage, with leisure to plan howshe should carry out what, from the moment shehad first glanced at her husband's letter, she haddetermined to do.

Half an hour sufficed her for thinking, or "takingcounsel," as she called it; half an hour more formaking preparations and coming across to us atNetherby, with her mind made up and all herarrangements settled.

"What can be done?" said Aunt Dorothy."How can it be that we have not heard from mybrother or Dr. Antony? The king's forces mustbe between us and Oxford, and the letters musthave been seized. But never fear, Rachel," sheadded, in a consoling tone. "At first they talkedof treating all the Parliament prisoners as traitors;but that will never be. A ransom or an exchangeis certain. Stay here to-night; it will be lesslonely for you. We can take counsel together; andto morrow we will think what to do."

"I have been thinking, Mistress Dorothy; andI have taken counsel. I am going at day-breakto-morrow to Oxford; and I came to ask if I coulddo aught for you, or take any message to MasterRoger."

"How?" said Aunt Dorothy. "And who willgo with you? Who will venture within the graspof those plunderers?"

"I have not asked any one, Mistress Dorothy. Iam going alone on our own old farm-horse."

"You travel scores of miles alone, and into themidst of the king's army, Rachel!" said AuntDorothy.

"I have taken counsel, Mistress Dorothy," saidRachel calmly, and, looking up, Aunt Dorothy metthat in Rachel's quiet eyes which she understood,and she made no further remonstrance.

Neither my Aunts nor I slept much that night.We were revolving various plans for helping Rachel,each unknown to the other.

I had thought of a letter to a friend of myFather's who lived half-way between us and Oxford,and rising softly in the night, without telling anyone, I wrote it. For I had removed to Roger'schamber while he was away; it seemed to bringme nearer to him.

Then, before daybreak, feeling sure Rachel wouldbe watching for the first streaks of light, I creptout of our house to hers.

She was dressed, and was quietly packing up thegreat Bible which lay always on the table, andlaying it in the cupboard.

"There is always some work, sweetheart," saidshe, "for every season, not to be done before orafter. That is why we need never be afraid ofgrowing old."

"Too fine folks for a plain body like me, MistressOlive. God bless you for the thought. Butin one village I must pass there is a humble godlyman who has oft tarried with us for a night, andhas expounded the word to us, and no doubt he willgive me a token to another. And if not, the seventhousand are always known to the Lord. Theprophet Elijah, indeed, did not know; but after hewas told about it once for all, none of us ought everto say again, 'I only am left alone.'"

"God forbid I should presume to say,sweet-heart," said she. "Oxford is many steps off. Andthe Lord has only shown me the next step. Job iswounded and in prison and wants me, and will myGod, and his, fail to show me how to get to him?"

As she spoke these last words, the force ofrepressed passion, and of faith contending in them,gave her voice an unwonted depth, which made itsound to me like another voice answering her.

At that moment Aunt Gretel arrived, laden witha small basket containing spiced cordials andpreserved meats for Rachel's journey.

And not a quarter of an hour afterwards, AuntDorothy, on horseback, bent on protecting Rachelthrough some portion of her way.

And Rachel from the mounting-steps climbed upon the patient old horse, and was gone, only turningback once to smile at us as we watched her.

She was not a woman for after-thoughts, or lastlingering words. She had always said what shewanted before the last.

She had left us the heavy key of the cottage-door,that we might give away the little stores whichshe had divided the night before into variousportions for her poor neighbours. She had intendedcommitting them to Margery, but as we were therefirst, we undertook the charge. How simply andhow unheralded events come which hallow ourcommon tables and chambers with the tendersolemnity as of places of worship or of burial. Thesound of Rachel's horse-hoofs was scarcely out ofhearing when the empty cottage had become to usas a sacred place. The little packets her neat handshad arranged so thoughtfully were no commonloaves, or meat, but sacred relics hallowed by herloving touch. And it was hard to look at thefirewood Job had piled by the fire for her, and thelittle stone channel he had made to bring the waternear the door, without tears.

"Oxford, November 1, 1642.—Victoria! The firststep is gained; the first lesson given, though atsome cost of noble lives to us and to the king.Lord Essex is fain to retreat to London to consolethe affrighted citizens, leaving the whole countryopen to the king. Yet my Father saith privatelyto us, this victory of Edgehill might have been farmore complete had it not been for Prince Rupert'srashness. Indeed, after the fight there had well-nighbeen a duel in the king's presence between theprince and a gentleman who expressed his mindpretty freely on the matter. The prince, afterpursuing the rebels to Keinton, lingered there,plundering the baggage, and returned with his horsesladen with the spoils to find the royal army not insuch order as it might have been had his troopskept with it. 'We can give a good account of theenemy's horse, your Majesty,' he said. 'Yes,' saidthis gentleman standing by, 'and of their cartstoo.' For which jest the haughty hot-blooded princewould have had severe revenge, had not the kingwith much ado brought them to an accommodation.

"Note.—The young Princes Charles and James,of but ten or twelve years old, had a narrow escape.Their governor, Dr. Harvey, a learned man, wassitting quietly with them on the grass reading hisbook, and never perceived anything was amiss untilthe bullets came whizziug round him. I wonderroyal persons should be trusted to the care ofpeople whose wits are always at the ends of the earth,like philosophers. Who knows how different thingsmight have been in the world if Dr. Harvey andthe young princes had sat there a few minuteslonger!

"However, the best fruits of victory are beginningto appear. Gentlemen, whose loyalty hadbeen somewhat wavering, are riding in from allquarters, well accoutred, abundantly attended,finely mounted, to offer their services to His Majesty.

"This grave and stately old city is gorgeouswith warlike array, and echoing with warlikemusic.

"My Father, Mother, and I are lodged in LincolnCollege. A distant cousin of ours, Sir WilliamDavenant, who hath writ many plays and farces,and now fights in the army, being of this college,and also others of our kindred from the northcountry. I feel quite at home in the rooms withtheir thick walls, and high narrow arched windowslike those in the turret-chamber at the Hall, moreat home than the old quadrangles and wallsthemselves can be with all this clamour and trumpetingto arms.

"Not that there is much to be seen in the greatinner court on which my chamber-window looks.An ancient vine climbs up one side of the walls,encircling the entrance arch, and its leaves, brownand crimson with the autumn, stirred with thebreeze, are making a pleasant quiet country musicas I write. This vine is held in high honour in thecollege, having illustrated the text of the sermon,'Look on this vine,' which inspired good Bishop deRotheram, more than two hundred years since, tobecome the second Founder of the College.

"Through this entrance-arch I look beyond itsshadow to the sunny street, crossed now and thenby the flash of arms, and gay Cavaliers' mantles,or the prancings of a troop of horse. That is allthe glimpse I have of the outer world. But I thinkmy Mother were content to live in such a place forever. Every day she resorts more than once to aquiet corner of the new Chapel to pay her orisons,taking delight in the stillness, and in the brilliantcolours of the painted windows Bishop Williams(once the antagonist of Archbishop Laud, and nowwith him in the Tower) had brought but a fewyears since from Italy.

"Outside this chapel there is a garden, where wewalk, and discourse of the prospects of thekingdom, and of those friends at Netherby from whomwe are now so sadly parted.

"For Roger and Mr. Drayton are in the rebelarmy—alas! there is no longer doubt of it—andany day their hands and those of my seven brothers,all in the king's army, may be against eachother.

"November 8th.—The king and the army areaway at Reading, with my Father and my brothers;and the city is quiet enough without them.

"Sir Launcelot is now on service about the Castle.I would he were on the field, and one of mybrothers here. However, I am not like to seemuch of him at present. He will scarce venture tocome after what I had to say to him this morning.

"He came in laughing, saying he had just seenan encounter between an old rebel woman at thegate and four of Prince Rupert's plunderers. 'Shewas contending with them for the possession of asober Puritanical-looking old horse,' said he. 'Theyclaimed it for the king's service. She said 'thatmight be, but in that case she chose to give it upherself unto the care of one of His Majesty's court,to whom she had a letter.'

"'I am scarcely such a knight errant as that,Mistress Lettice,' said he; 'I should have enoughto do, in good sooth. Moreover, the godlygenerally make good fight for their carnal goods, andin this instance the woman seemed as likely as notto have the best of the debate, to say nothing of herbeing wrinkled and toothless.'

"That made me flash up, as speaking lightly ofaged women always does. 'Poor chivalry,' said I,'which has not recollection enough of a mother tolend a helping hand to the old and wrinkled. Weshall be wrinkled and toothless in a few years, sir,and our imagination is not so weak but that we canfore-date a little while, and transfer all such heartlessjests to ourselves. I have been used to higherchivalry than that among the Puritans.

"He laughed, and made a pretty patheticdeprecation. His mother had died (quoth he) when hewas too young to remember. Some little excuse,perchance. However, Roger Drayton's mother alsodied when he was in infancy. But be that as itmight, I was in no mood to listen. And as wewere speaking, a serving-man came to tell me apoor woman from Netherby was in the ante-roomcraving to see me or my Mother.

"Her neat Puritan hood, so dainty, I think aroundher pale worn-looking face, was rather ruffled, andalthough her eyes had the wonted quiet in them,(only a little loftier than usual,) she was trembling,and willingly took the chair I offered her.

"'Nothing but a few rude jests at the gate, MistressLettice,' said she; 'but I am not used to them,or to going about the world alone. But I havebeen taken good care of. And I amhere,' she added,fervently; 'which is all I asked.'

"'They took him,' she said. 'But that matterslittle. He was a faithful beast, and I am feared howthey may use him. But the beasts have only now,neither fore nor after, which saves them much.' Thenwithout more words she gave me a letter fromOlive.

"From this I found that Roger is a prisoner inthe Castle here, with Job Forster.

"'I learned it a day or two since,' he replied,hesitating, 'but I did not tell you or Lady Lucy,because you are so pitiful, I feared to pain youuselessly.'

"'Nothing,' said I. 'You might have helped anaged woman, a friend of mine, whom you found indifficulties at the gate this morning. But now,excuse me, I have no time to spare—I must go tomy Mother.' And I withdrew to the inner room,to bring my Mother out at once to see what couldbe done; leaving him to retire through theante-room, where Rachel Forster sat.

"My Mother and Rachel had always been friends.They both live a good deal at the height where theparty-colours blend in the one sunlight; and theyneither of them ever speak half as much as theyfeel about religion.

"There was not much to say, therefore, when myMother understood her errand. My Mother's wordhad weight, and in a few hours she had procured apermit for Rachel to see her husband, provided theinterview was in her presence.

"It was a noisome place, she said—many personscrowded together like cattle in dungeons, withscant light or air, and none to wait on them buteach other. Job was on some straw in a corner,looking sorely altered—his strong limbs limp andemaciated, and his eye languid. But it waswonderful how his face lighted up when he saw Rachel.

"'I thought thee would come', said he, 'thoughI bid thee not. I knew thee had learned how "allthings are possible."'

"My Mother's intercessions procured for themthe great favour of a cell, which, though narrow,low, damp, and underground, they were to have tothemselves. And before she left, Rachel's neathands had made the straw and matting look like aproper sick-bed, while her presence had lighted thecell into a home.

"Then my Mother went to see Roger Drayton.His wound was not so severe as Job's, and hislodging was better, though wretched enough. Greatcomplaints were made about the prisons. But, Ifear, all war-prisons, suddenly and not verytenderly arranged, are hard enough.

"'I begged hard to be allowed to share his prison.But they would not let me,' said Roger.

"Roger, though far less suffering, looked lesstranquil than Job, my Mother said. He did notask for me until he had read Olive's letter, and thenhe said abruptly,—

"'Olive says she has written to Mistress Lettice.' Andhis face flushed deeply as he added, 'Olive isbut a child in such things, Lady Lucy, and cannotknow the hard laws of war. You will not beoffended if she pleads, fancying you could doanything for us. You must not let anything she saystrouble you, you are so kind. For I know nothingcan be done.'

"'Only one thing troubles me,' my Mother said,evasively, 'I would give much ifthat could bechanged.'

"'That cannot be changed, unless all could bechanged. It makes me restless enough to be shutup here, Lady Lucy, but it does not make medoubt.'

"'Those Draytons are like rocks—as firm, andalmost as hard. No, not hard. Nothing theyought not to be, if only they were on the rightside!

"And Roger called Olive a child. I wonder,then, what he thinks me, who am two yearsyounger!

"However, my Mother thinks something can bedone for Roger. Exchanges can be made. Littlecomfort in that. He is less dangerous to himselfand every one else where he is, than in the fieldagain. Yet my Mother says the air and food of theprison are none of the most wholesome. And, ofcourse, Olive wants to have him free. These aremost perplexing times. One cannot even tell whatto wish.

"I would send him a message when my Mothergoes again, but that he scarcely even asked for me;only defended himself against joining in Olive'spleadings for himself. So proud! I will send himno message, not a word. Nothing but a few sweetautumn violets from the college garden; becausethe air of the prison is so bad.

"February 10.—Job Forster all but sank. Hemust have died if my Mother had not pleaded hardand got permission at last for him to be taken hometo Netherby in one of our Hall wagons. Shethought it would scarce be more than to die. Butto-day we have had a letter from Rachel, saying, thevery sight of the forge and smell of the fieldsseemed to work on him like a heavenly cordial, andshe doubts not he will rally. Dr. Antony hathbeen to see him, and Olive, and Mistress Gretel, andMistress Dorothy, and brought him meats andstrong waters, and read him sermons, saith she, andthey say he could not be doing better. But, sheadds, she hopes Lady Lucy will not think it thanklessthat he should use his liberty to fight for theParliament, as no condition was made on hisreturn; and he thinks the Covenant under which hefights must stand good, and dares not break it. Somy sweet Mother hath on her conscience the guiltof tenderly nourishing a viper to sting what sheloveth best!

"But Roger Drayton is to be exchanged for oneof our Cavaliers, and is to leave Oxford to-morrow.All these weeks he hath been here, and never aword between us, except some cold thanks for thoseviolets. So proud is he! And it was not for meto begin.

"February 11.—Roger Drayton had the grace topay us his devoirs before he left, at Lincoln College.But he would scarce sit down. I trow he wasafraid of being vanquished if he ventured intodebate concerning his bad cause. He did not sayanything to me. If he had, I felt tempted to saysomething angry. But he did not begin; and whyshould I? Until at last, as he was leaving, hesaid,—

"'Mistress Lettice, I am going to join ColonelCromwell at Cambridge. But I may see Olive bythe way. May I say a word to her from you?Sometimes a message is better than a letter.'

"I could not think of anything to say. It tookme so by surprise after his silence. For it was justlike his old tone by the Mere, or in the woods, oron the terraces at Netherby, and at the Hall. Andit so brought poor old Netherby back to me, and allthe old happy days, that I was afraid my voicewould tremble if I spoke. I could only think ofMistress Dorothy's sermons; things come into one'shead so strangely. So, after a little while, I saidvery abruptly, 'I sent Olive dear love—and to tellMistress Dorothy I had read her sermons.'

"But his voice trembled a little as he wished usgood-bye; I certainly think it did. And he wasnot out of the door when I thought of ten thousandmessages to send to Olive. But I could not goafter him to say them. I could only go to thewindow and watch him through the court. I wasalmost sorry I did. For he looked up and saw me,and seemed half inclined to turn back. But,instead, he made a strange little reverence, as if hedid not quite know whether to seem to see me ornot. I wonder if he also had thought of a fewthings he would have liked to have said! He wasalways rather slow in speech; I mean, his wordsalways meant about ten times as much as any otherman's.

"And so he strode across the court and under theshadow of the archway into the sunny streetoutside. To join Colonel Cromwell. Colonel, indeed!By whose commission? Roger might at least havespared us that. If it had been Mr. Hampden even,or Lord Essex, it would not have been so bad. Butthis fanatic brewer!

"However, I am glad I said nothing angry. Onenever knows in these days where or when the nextword may be spoken. And then alack, thisMr. Cromwell, they say, is sure to be just where thefighting is.

"He did not look amiss in that plain Puritanarmour. The cap-a-pie armour of the 'Ironsides,' assome begin to call them. It seems to me moremartial and more manly than the gay trappingsof our Cavaliers. Gallant decorations are wellenough for a dance or a masque; but in real warfareI think the plainest vesture looks the noblest.At Edgehill His Majesty must have looked moststately in his suit of plain black velvet, with noornament but the George.

"March 1643.—There is a Dr. Thomas Fullerlodging here at present, who is a great solace to myMother, and also to me, being a kind of cousin ofours through his maternal uncle Dr. Davenant,Bishop of Salisbury.

"He is tall and athletic, with pleasant blue eyes,full of mirth, and withal of kindness, of a ruddycomplexion, with fair wavy locks. He hath witenough for a play-wright, and piety enough,—I hadalmost said for a Puritan—I should rather say foran archbishop.

"He was in London a few weeks since, and preacheda sermon to incline the rebels to peace, which isall his desire. But they did not relish it, and wouldhave him sign one of their unmannerly Covenants;which not being able to do, he has fled hither. Yetam I not sure that he is more at home among ourrollicking Cavaliers.

"I would I could remember half the wise andwitty things he saith. I like his wit, because isoften cuts both ways—against Puritan and Cavalier;and more especially at present against theyounger sort of the latter, whose recklessmanners suit him ill. The poor Puritans are so hit onall sides with the shafts of ridicule, that in fairnessI like to see some of the darts flying the other way,especially against such as assume to themselves themonopoly of wit.

"'Harmless mirth,' said Dr. Fuller the otherday, 'is the best cordial against the consumption ofthe spirits, but jest not with the two-edged swordof God's word. Will nothing please thee to washthy hands in but the font? Or to drink healths inbut the church-chalice?'

"He is very busy, and is abstemious in eatingand drinking, and is an early riser. Sir Launcelot,liking not, I ween, to feel the jest so against himself,calls him a Puritan in disguise; but Harry and heare good friends, and to my Mother he behavethever with a gentle deference, as all men, indeed, arewont to do. With her his wit seems to change itsnature from fire to sunshine. So tenderly doth heseek to brighten her pensive and somewhatself-reproachful spirit into peace and praise. She onher part hath her sweet returns of sympathy forhim, drawing him forth to discourse of his youngwife lately dead, and his motherless infant boy.

"Religion with my Mother is a life of affections,not merely a code of rules; and, I suppose, like allaffections, brings its sorrows as well as its joys.Otherwise I could scarce account for the heavinessshe so often is burdened withal.

"One day, when she was fearing to embrace thecheering words of Scripture, Dr. Fuller encouragedher by reminding her how in the Hebrews the promise,'I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee,' thoughat first made only to Joshua, is applied to all goodmen. 'All who trust the Saviour, and followhim,' said he, 'are heirs-apparent to all the promises.'

"But she, who being a saint (by any laws ofcanonization) ever bemoaneth herself as though shewere a penitent weeping between the porch and thealtar, put off his consolation with—

"To which he, unlike most ghostly comforters Ihave heard, replied with no honeyed commendation,false or true, but said,—

"'In the agony of a wounded conscience alwayslook upward to God to keep thy soul steady. Forlooking downward on thyself, thou shalt findnothing but what will increase thy fear; infinitesins, good deeds few and imperfect. It is not thyfaith, but God's faithfulness thou must rely on.Casting thine eyes down to thyself, to behold thegreat distance between what thou desirest and whatthou deservest is enough to make thee giddy, stagger,and reel unto despair. Ever, therefore, lift upthine eyes to the hills whence cometh thine help.'

"'The reason,' quoth he afterwards, 'why somany are at a loss in the agony of a wounded conscience,is, that they look for their life in the wrongplace—namely, in their own piety and purity. Letthem seek and search, dig and dive never so deep,it is all in vain. For though Adam's life was hid inhimself, yet, since Christ's coming all the originalevidences of our salvation are kept in a higheroffice—namely, hidden in God himself. Surely many adespairing soul groaning out his last breath withfear to sink down to hell, hath presently beencountermanded by God to eternal happiness.'

"His words brought tears to my Mother's eyes,but comfort, said she, to her heart.

"Yet, though she saw sunshine through theclouds, she feared to find the cloud again beyondthe sunshine, whereon he heartened her further bysaying, 'Music is sweetest near or over rivers,where the echo thereof is best rebounded by thewater. Praise for pensiveness, thanks for tears,and blessing God over the floods of affliction,makes the most melodious music in the ear ofheaven.'

"Good and fit words for her who needs anddeserves such. To me these other words of his aremore to the purpose.

"'How easy,' saith he, 'is pen and paper piety.It is far cheaper to work one's head than one's heartto goodness. I can make a hundred meditationssooner than subdue one sin in my soul.'

"He gave my Mother also a sermon of his 'on thedoctrine of assurance,' which she much affects.'All who seek the grace of assurance,' he writes,'in a diligent and faithful life, may attain it withoutmiraculous illumination. Yet many there are whohave saving faith without it. And those who denythis will prove racks to tender consciences. As thecareless mother killed her little child, for sheoverlaid it, so this heavy doctrine would press manypoor but pious souls, many infant faiths, to the pitof despair.'

"April 1643.—Dr. Fuller hath left us to bechaplain in the regiment of Lord Hopton, an honorableman, who will honour him, and give him scope todo all the good that may be to the soldiers.

"He took leave of us in the college-garden, andgave my Mother a book of his imprinted last year,when he was preacher at the Savoy in London. Itis entitled the Holy State and the Profane State,and seemeth wise and witty like himself. As heparted from us, he begged her to remember that'all heavenly gifts, as they are got by prayer, arekept and increased by praise.'

"Note.—I like well what he writes of anger.'Anger is one of the sinews of the soul. He thatwants it hath a maimed mind.' I would I hadknown this saying to comfort Roger Draytonwithal, when Sir Launcelot provoked him to thatblow.

"Yet another saying is perhaps as needful, atleast for me, 'Be not mortally angry for a venialfault. He will make a strange combustion in thestate of his soul who at the landing of everycock-boat sets the beacons on fire.'

"We miss Dr. Fuller sorely; my Mother for hiswords of ghostly cheer, and I for the just andgenerous things he dares to say of good men on theother side, and saith with a wit and point whichleaves no opening for scornful jest to controvert.

"If Dr. Fuller had been the vicar of Netherby,and if the Draytons had known him, maybe manythings had gone otherwise.

"Now, alack! there seems less hope of accommodationby this Christmas than I had felt sure of bythe last.

"Some Lords and some Commons. But noughtcould they accomplish. How, indeed, could aughtbe hoped from subjects who presume to treat withtheir liege lord as with a rival power?

"My Lord Falkland (now the king's secretary)comes now and then to converse with my Mother.Those who knew him before this sad rebellionbegan, say he is sorely changed from what he was.Whereas his mind used to be as free and open toentertain all wise and pleasant thoughts of others,as his mansion at Great Tew, near this was freeand open to entertain their persons, so that theycalled it 'a college of smaller volume in a purer air;'now, they say, he is often preoccupied, and when inprivate will sigh and moan 'Peace! peace!' andsay he shall soon die of a broken heart, if this direwar be prolonged. This especially since the royalarmy was driven back from Brentford on its way toLondon.

"But to us, who contrast him not with his formerself, but with other men, he seems the gentlest andmost affable of Cavaliers, ever ready to give ear anddue weight to thought and wish of any, the leastor the lowest.

"We had not known him much of old, becausehe leant to the Puritan party (being a close friendof Mr. Hampden), and thought ill of ArchbishopLaud, and spoke not too well of bishops or episcopacy.

"But in this conflict I think the noblest on eachside are those who are all but on the other; not, Imean, in affection—for lukewarmness is never avirtue—but in conviction and character.

"The queen is amongst us again, as graceful andfull of charms as ever. But some think the kingwere liker to follow moderate counsels without her.He holds her as ever in a perfect adoration, and it isnot likely to conciliate him that Parliament haveactually dared to 'impeach' her. Blasphemyalmost, if it were not more like the folly of naughtychildren playing at being grandsires and grandames!

"June 26.—Mr. Hampden is dead! By a singularmark of the divine judgment (Mr. Hyde says),he was mortally wounded on Chalgrove Field, thevery place where he began not many months sinceto proclaim the rebellious Ordinance Militia. Itwas in a skirmish with Prince Rupert. The samenight the rumour spread among us that somethingbeyond ordinary ailed him, for he was seen to rideoff the field in the middle of the fight (a thing neverbefore known in him), with his head low drooping,and his hands on his horse's neck. Less than afortnight afterwards, he died in sore agonies, theysay, but persevering in his delusion to the end, sothat his heart was not troubled.

"He was much on my Mother's heart, since sheheard of his being wounded, for he was ever heldto be a brave and blameless gentleman. Shegrieved sore that he uttered no one repentant word.

"(Yet the last word we heard he spoke was notso ill a word to die with; 'O God, save mybleeding country!')

"'But,' said she, 'there are Papists who diewithout ever seeing anything wrong in the mass, orin regarding the blessed Virgin as Queen ofHeaven, who yet die calling on the blessed Saviourwith such piteous entreaty as he surely faileth notto hear. And it may be trusted Mr. Hampden'sheresy is no worse.'

"To most around us it is simply the rebels' lossin him that is accounted of. And that they say ismore than an army. For he was the man bestbeloved in all the land. Some of us, however, speakof the loss to England, and say that his and myLord Falkland's were the only right hands throughwhich this sundered realm might have met infellowship again.

"I see nothing glorious in the glories of this war,nothing triumphant in its triumphs, no gain in itsspoils.

"It makes my heart ache to see Prince Rupertand his Cavaliers return flushed with success andladen with plunder from raids all over the country.I cannot help seeing in my heart the poor farmerswandering about their despoiled granaries andstalls, and the goodwife bemoaning her emptydairy, and the children missing the cattle andpoultry, which are not 'provision' only to them, butfriends; and soon, alack poor foolish babes, to missprovision too and cry for it in vain.

"These are our own English homes that are ravagedand wasted. What triumph is there in it forany of us? I would the hearts of these Palatineprinces yearned a little more tenderly towards theirmother's countrymen.

"The only hope is that all these horrors willbring the end, the end, the 'Peace, peace,' for whichmy Lord Falkland groans.

"But I know not; I think of Netherby and theDraytons; and I scarce deem English hearts are tobe won back by terror and plunder.

"August 28, 1643.—Better hopes! Somethinglike a glimpse of the end, at last.

"Everything is going prosperously for the kingand the good cause, north, and south, and west.

"In the north, on June the 3rd, the Earl ofNewcastle defeated Lord Fairfax and the rebels atAtherton Moor. A few days afterwards York andGainsborough and Lincoln surrendered, and nownot a town remains to the Parliament betweenBewich and Hull.

"On the 13th of July, not a fortnight afterwards,Sir William Waller was defeated and his wholearmy scattered on Lansdowne Heath, near Devizes;the only offset to this advantage being the death ofthe brave and good Sir Bevill Grenvill, for whosewife, Lady Grace, bound to him in the truesthonour and love, my Mother mourned much.

"And on July 22nd, not a fortnight after this,Prince Rupert took Bristol, thus doing much tosecure Wales, otherwise, moreover, well-affected.

"Our hopes are high indeed. In all the horizonthere seems but one shadow like a cloud, and thatso small I should scarce mention it but that an oldfriend is under it. Mr. Cromwell (or Colonel, as theycall him now, forsooth) gained some slight advantageat Grantham and Gainsborough, and stormedBurleigh House. Indeed, wherever he is, they say,he seems just now to bring good fortune. But this,I think, bodes no ill. Little weight indeed canthese unsuccessful skirmishes have to counterbalancevictories, and captured cities, and revivingloyalty throughout the North and West and South.And if the rebels are to succeed anywhere, I hadrather it were where Roger Drayton is, because itis in the nature of the Draytons to be more yieldingin prosperity than in ill fortune.

"His Majesty has just set forth with the army,all in high feather, to besiege the obstinate anddisloyal city of Gloucester.

"Lord Essex, they say, is collecting an army tomeet him. But we could wish for no better. Onedecisive battle, my Lord Falkland and other wisemen think, is the one thing to end the war.

"September 22nd, 1643.—I cannot make it out.They say there has been a victory at Newbury, yetnothing seems to come of it. The king is hereagain, and the siege of Gloucester is given up, andour people begin to quarrel among themselves,treading on each other in their eagerness for placesand titles and honours. I think they might wait a little,at all events, till the Court is at Whitehall again.

"One good sign is that three rebel Earls—Bedford,Holland, and Clare—have returned to theirallegiance. The Earl of Holland raised the militiafor the Parliament, so that he hath somewhat torepent of. There is much discussion how they shouldbe received; the elder Cavaliers recommending apolitic forgetting of their offence; but we, who areyounger, desire they should be received as naughtychildren, if not with reproaches, at most with a cooland lofty indifference, to show we need them not.It would not look well to be too glad. And,moreover, they are three more claimants for the royalgrace, and the faithful like not that the faithlessshould be better served than they who have bornethe burden and heat of the day.

"And Harry says the noblest is gone. The noblest,he says, always fall the first victims in suchconflicts as these, so that the strife grows morecruel, and baser from year to year.

"The Lord Falkland was slain at Newbury. Hewas missing on the evening of the fight, but allthrough the night they hoped he might have beentaken prisoner. On the morrow, however, theyfound him among the slain, 'Only too glad toreceive his discharge,' Harry said. On the morningof the battle he was of good cheer, as was his wont;his spirits rising at the approach of danger. Hisfriends urged him not to go into the battle, hehaving no command, but he would not be kept away.He rode gallantly on in the front ranks of LordByron's regiment, between two hedges, behind whichthe Roundheads had planted their musketeers. 'Iam weary of the times,' he said to those who urgedhim to withdraw; 'I foresee much misery to mycountry, but I believe I shall be out of it beforenight.'

"And so he was; and needeth now no more dolefullyto moan for 'Peace, peace!' as so often inthese last months. He is singing it now, we trust,where good men understand all perplexed things,and each other.

"Falkland and Hampden! Alas! how manymore before the peace songs are chanted here onearth!

"The two right hands are cold and stiff throughwhich the king and the nation might have beenclasped together again in fellowship.

CHAPTER IX.

The winter of 1642-43 was one ofuneasy uncertainty to us at Netherby.The whole world seemed to lie dimand hazy, as if wrapped in the heavyfolds of a November fog. The next villages seemedto become far-off and foreign, in the unsettled stateof the country. There was no knowing the facesand voices of friends from those of foes, in therapid shifting of parties. The comrade of yesterdaywas the opponent of to-day. Who could saywhat the comrade of to-day might be to-morrow?Mr. Capel, the Member for Hertfordshire, who hadbeen the first in Parliament to complain ofgrievances, had become Lord Capel, and was threateningthe seven associated counties with his plunderers.

Lord Essex (many thought) seemed as frightenedat success as at failure. Victories lulled him intofruitless negotiations; and the only thing thatroused him to action was imminent ruin. Somemurmured that "professional soldiers love longwars as physicians love long diseases." Somewhispered of treachery, and others of Divinedispleasure. The explosion of battle had come; butthe only consequence seemed to be the loosening ofthe whole ground around, the crumbling away ofthe nation in all directions.

Partly, no doubt, this sense of vagueness anddimness was caused by the absence from mosthomes and communities of the most capable andmanly men in each,—in the garrisons, on the field,taking counsel with the King at Oxford, or takingcounsel for the nation at Westminster. Thus eventswere left to be guessed and debated by old mendespondent with the decay of many hopes; orwomen, draining in anxious imaginations the dregsof every peril they could not share in fact; or boysdelighting in magnifying the dangers they hopedsoon to encounter, therewith to magnify themselvesin the eyes of mothers and maids.

Rachel Forster, on whose gentle strength thewhole village was wont to lean, was away; andAunt Dorothy, the manliest heart left among us,had a belief in the general wickedness of men, andthe general going wrong of things in this evilworld, which was anything but reassuring to thosewhose fears were quickened with the life-blood ofmore vivid hopes than hers.

I can remember nothing rising prominently outof the general hum and fog except two convictions,which enlarged before us steadily, becoming moresolid instead of more shadowy as they came nearer.The first was the impossibility of trusting the King.The second was that everything went right whereColonel Cromwell was; for by this time he wasColonel Cromwell, at the head of his regiment,which he was slowly sifting and compressing intothe firm invincible kernel of his invincible army.

A dim, dreary time it was for us from the EdgehillFight, in October, 1642, to the beginning ofFebruary, 1643. Roger in prison at Oxford withJob; my Father at Reading or in London withLord Essex and the army.

But in the beginning of February a new timedawned on us. My Father came home to us for afew days, to make the old house as tight as hecould against any assaults from Lord Capel, or anystraggling party of Prince Rupert's plunderers,who were always making dashing forays into thecounties favourable to the Parliament, and appearingwhere they were least expected. The old moat,which in front of the house had long been thepeaceful retreat of many generations of ducks, andelsewhere had been partially blocked up with fallenstones and trees, was carefully cleared out and filledwith water. The terraces which led to it on thesteep side of the house were scarped, all but theuppermost, which was palisadoed, and had twogreat guns planted on it. The drawbridge wasrepaired, and ordered to be always drawn up atnight. We were provided with a garrison of fourof the farm-servants, drilled as best might be forthe occasion, and placed under the command ofBob, which virtually placed the whole fortress underthe command of Tib, whose orders were the onlyones Bob was never known not to disregard.Meantime my aunts and I, with the serving-maids,were instructed how to make cartridges, and preparematches for the match-locks; and Aunt Gretelgave us the benefit of her experience in pullinglint, preparing bandages, and other hospital work.

If an attack, however, were ever made, the generalbelief in the household was that Aunt Dorothywould take her place as commandant, her couragebeing of the active rather than the passive kind.Indeed, I think the sense of danger to ourselveswas a kind of relief to most of us. It seemed tomake us sharers in the great struggle, which webelieved to be for God, and truth, and righteousness.It took us out of the position of uneasylisteners for rumours into that of sentinels on thealert for an attack. And the whole spirit of thehousehold rose from dreamy disquiet into cheerywatchfulness and activity.

My Father brought us the story of the king'sattempt to surprise London. "It was a treacherous,unkingly deed," my Father said, "enough to quenchin the heart of the people every spark of trust leftin His Majesty."

He said it happened on this wise. On Thursday,the 11th of November, 1642 (my father told us),the king received messengers from the Commonswith proposals of peace, declared his readiness tonegotiate, and his intention to remain peaceably inthe same neighborhood till all was amicably settled.The Parliament, trusting him, ceased hostilities.Nevertheless, instantly after despatching thismessage, he set off in full march for London. OnSaturday he sent forces under Prince Rupert tosurprise Brentford under cover of a November fog,and of his own too loyally trusted word. ButDenzil Hollis, with part of his regiment, made a noblestand, and stopped the Prince's progress.

Hampden came up first, and Lord Brook, to thesuccour of Hollis' imperilled regiment; they triedto fight through the royal troops, which hadsurrounded Hollis and his men in the streets ofBrentford. This they could not effect. But Hollis' littleband themselves fought to their last bullet, and thenthrew themselves into the river, those who werenot drowned swimming past Prince Rupert's troopsto Hampden and his Greencoats. Lord Essex,hearing the sound of guns in the Parliament House,where he was at the time, took horse and gallopedacross the parks and through Knightsbridge to thescene of action. After this, all through theSaturday night, soldiers came pouring out from theroused city, until, on Sunday morning, four andtwenty thousand men were gathered on TurnhamGreen.

"And then," replied my Father, drily, "LordEssex recalled him, and so nothing further came ofit; but things have gone on simmering ever since;always getting ready, and discussing how thingsshould be done, and never doing them."

"Mr. Hampden would have had my Lord Essexinvest Oxford," said my Father, "but he is asubordinate, and Lord Essex a veteran; andMr. Hampden, I trow, deems military obedience thebest example he can give an army scarce six monthsrecruited from the shop or the plough."

"And meantime," said Aunt Dorothy, "I warrantPrince Rupert is active enough. There is no endto the tales of his devastations, seizing whole teamsfrom the plough, setting fire to quiet villages atmidnight, with I know not what iniquities besides,and carrying home the spoil from twenty milesaround to the king's quarters at Oxford. If LordEssex does not want to fight the king, why doesnot he submit to him? Keeping twenty-fourthousand men armed and fed at the public expense, anddoing nothing, is neither peace nor war to mymind!"

"True, sister Dorothy," said my Father, "I knowof no method by which war can be carried on in afriendly way. And when Lord Essex has come tothe same conclusion, perhaps things will go a littlefaster."

"Colonel Cromwell has been doing somethingbetter than dreaming what to do, at Cambridge,since he saved the magazine there and £2,000 ofplate for the Parliament last June," said AuntDorothy. "Troops are pouring up to him fromEssex and Suffolk, and all around, they say; andCambridge is being fortified; and they say it isowing to Colonel Cromwell we are so quiet in theseseven counties."

"Colonel Cromwell has a rare gift of sifting thechaff from the wheat; finding out who can do thework and setting them to do it," said my Father,thoughtfully.

"So strict with his soldiers too," said AuntDorothy. "They say the men are fined twelve pence ifthey swear a profane oath."

"Then," said my Father, "he is doing what hetold his cousin Mr. Hampden must be done, if everthe Parliament army is to match the king's."

"Getting men of religion," my Father replied,"to fight the men of birth. You will never do it,"said Colonel Cromwell, "with tapsters and 'prenticelads. Match the enthusiasm of loyalty with theenthusiasm of piety!"

"It is strange," rejoined Aunt Dorothy, "thatMr. Cromwell never discovered his right professionbefore. A farmer till forty-three, and then all atonce to find out he was made for a soldier!"

"What can make or find out soldiers but wars,sister Dorothy?" said my Father. "Moreover, Iwarrant Colonel Cromwell has known what it is towage other kinds of war before this. It is onlytaking up new weapons. It is only the sameconflict for the oppressed against the oppressor, inwhich he contended for those of the Fen countryagainst Royal assumption, and for the poor men ofSomersham against the courtiers who would haveousted them from their ancient common-rights; orfor the gospel lecturers whom Archbishop Laudsilenced. The same war, only a new field and newweapons. At any rate, I am glad the lad Roger isto serve under him; and so you may tell him whenhe gets his liberty and comes home, as I trust hewill in a fortnight."

This was said as my Father was taking an earlybreakfast alone with us in the Hall, with his horsesaddled at the door, ready to take him back to theLord General's quarters.

Rachel and Job Forster came home before Roger,in Sir Walter Davenant's wagon, stored with provisionsand cordials, and soft pillows, by Lady Lucy.

I believe every one in Netherby slept with agreater feeling of security on the night after theirreturn. Poor Margery, Dickon's young wife, saidit was like the Ark coming back from the Philistines,regardless of the slur she thereby cast on theRoyalist army, in which Dickon fought. And yetthere was nothing very reassuring in Job's appearance.He looked like a gaunt ghost, and stumbledinto the cottage like a tottering infant, and ratherfell on the bed, which had been made up for him inthe kitchen, than lay down on it, so broken washis strength. When the neighbours came in aftera while, however, he had a good word to hearteneach of them. As to Rachel, she settled in at once,without more ado, to her old ways and plans, doingeverything with the purpose-like quietness whichso calms the sick.

Cheered by Job's greetings to the neighbours,she told me it was not until the place was still, andshe was making up the fire for the night, that sheknew how low his strength was. As she took thewood from the pile he had made for her close to thefire, she was startled, she told me, by a sound likea stifled sob from where he lay.

"Art laid uneasy?" said she, at his side in aninstant. "Does aught ail thee? Is the bed ill-made?"

"Naught," said he. "It's better than the bedof Solomon to me, with the pillars of silver andthe bottom of gold. But I am like to them thatdream, laughing and crying all in one. For I usedto think before thee come to the gaol, how I shouldnever see thee kindle a fire in the old place again,and how every stick thee had to take from whereI laid it for thee would go to thy heart like a stab.And it shamed me not to have made a better shotat the Lord's meaning for thee and me."

"How could thee tell His meaning," said Rachel,"before He told thee? He gave thee no promiseto bring thee out of prison, nor me."

"Nay," said Job, "but it's making very boldwith Him, and making fools of ourselves, to guessat His words when they're half spoken, instead ofwaiting to hear them out. And it grieves me Ishould have suspected Him when He was moaningus so well. Read me what the Scripture saith aboutthe forgiveness of sins."

"But, Mistress? Olive," concluded Rachel, whenshe told me this little history, "when Elijah, wornout with trouble, misunderstood the Lord, the angelcomforted him, not with a text, but with a cakebaken on the coals; so, when Job took tomisunderstanding the Almighty like that, thinking Hewould be angered with what would not have frettedone of the likes of us poor hasty creatures, insteadof the Bible I gave him a good cup of strong broth.I knew it was the body, poor soul, and not thespirit that was to blame, and that all those bravewords he spoke to the neighbours had cost morethan they were worth; and, of course, I was notgoing to profane the Holy Word by using it likethe spell in a witch's charm."

So for several days she kept every creature out ofthe cottage, which deprived me of her counsel in amoment of difficulty, which happened the week oftheir return.

Lord Capel's troops continued to hover round,and to keep the district in a state of suspense andalarm, ripe for any marvellous stories of horror, orfor any acts of terrified revenge. For in stormytimes there are sure to be some cowardly spiritsready to throw any helpless victim as an expiatorysacrifice to the powers of evil.

One Saturday evening, late in February, I wasreturning home through the village from GammerGrindle's cottage, which I had very often visitedsince poor Tim's death. The old woman had seemedgentler in her way of speaking of her neighbours,and once or twice had betrayed her pleasure inseeing me by speaking sharply to me if I stayed awaylonger than usual, as if I had been one of her ownlost grandchildren.

I had made rather a long circuit in returning, notliking to try the high road again, because, in going,I had encountered a dozen or so of the king'stroopers, and as I was hurrying past them, theycomplimented me in a way I did not like, and cameafter me. I recognized Sir Launcelot Trevor'svoice among them, and then I turned round andspoke to him, and begged him to call his men away.Which, when he recognized me, he did; but notwithout some more idle Cavalier jesting, which setmy heart beating, and made me resolve to comeback by a quiet path through the Davenant woods,which led round through the village by Job Forster's.

Poor old Gammer was very friendly. I supposeI was trembling a little, though I did not tell herwhy, for she declared I was chattering with cold,and would have me drink a hot cup of peppermintwater, and kindled up the fire, and took off myshoes, which were wet, and dried them, wrappingup my feet, meanwhile, in her own best woolseywhimple. Indeed, she was so gracious andapproachable, that I ventured to say something aboutthe benefit of coming to church, and mingling alittle more with her neighbours.

"Too late, too late for that!" said she, firing up."This twenty year, come Lammas, my Joan, Cicely'smother, was buried, she and her man, Cicely'sfather, in one grave. And the parson would donothing without his fee. So I sold the cover frommy bed to pay him. And I vowed I'd never darkenhis church-door again."

"But that parson is dead, Gammer," said I, "andit was not his church after all."

"That may be," said she. "But a vow is a vow.Besides, I could never bear the folks' eyes speiringat me. I'm ugly, and lone, and poor, and theymake mouths at me, and call me an old hag and awitch. But it's only natural. All the brood willpeck at the lame chick. All the herd will leave thestricken deer. Didn't all the village hoot and jeerat my poor, tender, innocent Tim?"

And then she poured forth the story of her life ofsorrow as I had never heard it before. A hearttrained to distrust and suspect through a childhoodof bondage under the petty tyrannies of a stepmotherand her children. One year of happy marriedlife, ending in a sudden widowhood, whichwidowed her heart also of all its remnant of hopein God, and left her to struggle prayerless and alonewith a hard world, for bread for herself and herorphan babe. The growing up of this child to be astay and comfort, and, for three years, a secondhome with her when she married. This secondhome broken up as suddenly as the first, by thedeath of the daughter and her husband in one month,from a catching sickness, leaving the grandmotheronce more alone to toil with enfeebled strength fortwo orphan babes; the boy, poor, faithful Tim,half-witted and sickly; the girl, Cicely, wilful andhigh-spirited, and the beauty of the village. Then theterrible morning when Cicely was gone, and noaccount could be got of her beyond Tim's confusedand exulting statement, that Cicely had cried, andlaughed, and kissed him, and told him to wishgrandmother good-bye for her, and she would come backa lady and bring Tim a gun like Master Roger's;to Gammer Grindle tidings worse than bereavementor all the misery she had known, for she came of atruly honourable yeoman's house that had neverknown shame. Tim, however, could never bebrought to look on his sister's disappearance in anybut the most cheerful light, and would watch forhours at the corner of the path leading to the villagefor Cicely and the "gun like Master Roger's," until,as time passed on, the expectation seemed to fadeaway, only to be awakened once again by themysterious touch of death. And since then not a wordof the poor lost girl. Tim in the grave, and thevain longing that Cicely were there too. And allthe little world around her, as she believed, leaguedagainst her crushed but unconquered heart. Sheended with,—

"But it's but natural. When the lightningshave rent the trunk the winds soon snap the boughs.They say the devil stands by me. If he did no oneneed wish him for a friend. They say the Almightyis against me. And most times I think belikeHe is."

Then Aunt Gretel's words came back to me,"Anywhere but there. Put the darkness anywhere butthere;" and I said,—

"Never, Gammer, never. The devil said thatthousands of years ago; but the Lord Christ cameto show what a lie it was. He stood by the strickenand wounded always. The lame and the blindcame to Him in the temple, and he healed them."

"The devil is no easy enemy to deal with, mistress,but if I could be sure it was only him, maybeI might look up and try again."

At last she was persuaded so far as to let me sayI might call for her the next Sunday on my way tochurch. "It was as like as not she would notgo, but at any rate it would do her no harm to seeme."

And as I left I heard something like a blessingfollow me, and I saw the poor, bent old figureleaning out of the door and watching me.

But when I came back to Netherby I foundthe whole village at the doors in a ferment of eagertalk.

I thought at once of Sir Launcelot and the troopers,and asked if there had been another battle.

"Nay, nay," said the woman I spoke to, "it'snaught but folks going to reap their deserts atlast."

"Three of Farmer White's finest milch kine gonein one night!" "Goodwife Joyce's best black henkilled, and not a feather touched; no mortal fox'swork it was too plain to see!" "The dogs yellingas if they were possessed, as belike they were, onSaturday evening, seeing no doubt more than theycould tell, poor beasts, of what was going on in theair!" "Lord Essex and his army lying spellbound,able to do nothing, while the Prince Robberwas plundering the land far and wide!" "Job andMaster Roger, the best in the village, the firststricken; too clear where the blows came from!" "Andto-day the squire's own cattle driven off themeadow, with Mistress Nicholl's, by a troop ofplunderers, who came no one knew whence, andhad gone no one knew whither!" "And finally,Tony Tomkin had been pursued by a headlesshound through the Davenant woods, where he hadonly gone to take a rabbit or two he had snared,and thought no harm, the family being away andfighting against the country!" "And," but thiswas muttered under the breath, "there were thosewho said they had seen something that was notsmoke come out of Gammer Grindle's chimney—somethingthat flew away over the fens faster thanany bird. And this was only on last Saturdaynight, and every one knew that Saturday was theday of the witches' Sabbath ever since the Jewshad brought the innocent blood on their heads!"

Then suddenly it flashed on me what it all meant.They were going to execute some dreadful vengeanceon Gammer Grindle, believing her to be oneof the witches who were causing all the mischief inthe land.

It was no use to set myself against the torrent offear and rage, so I said as quietly as I could,—

"First," was the reply, "they're going to duckher in the Mere before her own door. If she sinksthey will pull her out if they can, as it mayn't beher doings after all. If she swims she's a witch,clear and plain."

"Nothing too bad, Mistress Olive, for the like ofthem. But the lads'll see when it comes to thepoint. It isn't often their master helps the wretchesout at last, they say. And if she don't sinknatural, as a Christian ought, belike the lads'llmake her."

"They're but just off," was the answer. "Butthey'll make short work of it, never fear. It'stime a stop could be put to such things, if ever itwas."

"If Rachel and Job had been among you thiswould never have been," I thought. I longed tohave consulted Rachel, had it been possible. Butthere was no time to hesitate.

My first impulse was to rush after the cruel boys;but I felt that in the maddened state of terror inwhich the village was, they would most probablykeep me back. So, without saying a word orvisibly quickening my pace, I walked quietly ontowards home.

I took her arm, not violently, I was so afraid offrightening her from doing what I had determinedmust be done. And I said quite quietly,—

"Not this way, Olive," she said. "The plunderershave been there to-day. Your Father's bestcattle are taken, and Placidia's."

"If the cattle are gone, then belike so are theplunderers," I said. "But if the king's whole armywere there we must take the shortest way."

As we came to the creek of the Mere, on the oppositeside of which the cottage was, we heard yellsand shouts too plainly borne across the water in thestillness of the evening, unbroken by the lowing ofthe stolen cattle which had been feeding there thatmorning. And in another moment we saw thereflection of torches gleaming in the water, as wostumbled along in the dusk among the reeds. Ilistened eagerly for poor old Gammer's voice. ButI heard nothing. Indeed, my own heart began tobeat so fast, I could hear little but that. Until,just as we reached the cottage, there was a dullsplash, and then a silence. It was followed by alow moan, but by no cry. They were drowningthe poor old woman, and the brave broken heartwould vouchsafe them the triumph of no entreatyfor mercy and no cry of distress! I knew it as if Isaw it. And the next moment I had flown alongthe shore and was in the midst of the crowd on thebrink of the water, clinging with one hand roundthe stem of an alder, and stretching out the othertill it grasped the poor shrivelled hands which hadcaught at the branches which drooped over thewater.

I was scarcely prepared for the desperate tenacityof the grasp which returned mine. I never felt tillthat moment what it means to cling to Life. Myother arm held firm, but the bank was oozy andslippery, and I felt as if I were losing my power,when at that instant Aunt Gretel came and kneltbeside me, and clutching Gammer Grindle's dress,between us we dragged her to land.

The men, or rather lads (for they were few ofthem more), who formed the crowd, had been startledinto inaction by our sudden appearance amongthem; but now they began to mutter angrily, andwould have pushed us rudely away, saying "it wasno matter for women to meddle in. They had notcome there for nothing, and they would have it out.The whole country-side should not be laid waste tosave one wicked old witch, that no one had a goodword to say for."

By this time Gammer Grindle had recovered sofar as to rise out of that mere instinct ofself-preservation with which she had desperately clung to me.And disengaging herself from me, she said, standingerect and facing her assailants,—

"Let me alone, Mistress Olive. They say right.They are all gone who would have said a goodword for me. Let me go to them."

"Confess!" said one of them, shaking her rudely;"confess, and we'll leave you to the justices. Ifnot you shall try the water once more to sink orswim."

And they dragged her again to the brink. Thetouch of the cold oozing water made the horror andweakness come over her again. Her courageforsook her, and she cried like the feeble old womanshe was,—

"Have pity on me, neighbours. I'll confessanything, if you'll leave me alone—anything I can.I've been a sinful old woman, and the Lord's againstme; the Lord's against me!"

"Hear her, mistress," said the men with a cry oftriumph; "she'll confess anything. She says theAlmighty's against her. It isn't fit such shouldlive."

They were forcing her on; her poor, patched,thin garments tore in my hands as I clung to them.Aunt Gretel, driven to the end of her English, asusual with her in strong emotion, was pouring forthentreaties and prayers in German, when I caughtsight of a Netherby lad well known as the pest ofthe village, and the ringleader in all mischief. Hewas carrying a torch. I caught his arm and lookedin his face.

"Tony Tomkin," I said, "Squire Drayton shallknow of this, and it shall not be unpunished. It isyour wickedness, and such as yours, that brings thetrouble on us all, and not Gammer Grindle's. Godis angry with you, Tony, for breaking your littlebrother's head, and idling away your time, whileyour poor mother toils her life away to get youbread. You will not give up your hearts to be goodlike brave men, which is the only sacrifice God willhave; and instead, like a pack of cowards, you aresacrificing a poor helpless old woman to the devil.Isn't there one man here with the heart of a man inhim? What harm can the devil do you, much lessa witch, if you please God? And which of youthinks God will be pleased by a troop of you slinkinghere in the dark to murder a helpless old womanat her own door? Can none of you lads of Netherbyremember poor Tim, and how he died for MasterRoger, and how good she was to him? Or can'tyou trust Squire Drayton to do justice, and leaveher to him?"

Tony let his torch fall and slunk back. Then twoNetherby men came forward and said,—

Two or three others joined them. The cry arose,"No one shall touch the old woman to-night, aslong as there's any Netherby lads to hinder it."

A scuffle ensued, during which Aunt Gretel andI got hold of Gammer Grindle once more, and ledher back into the cottage.

Once there, we barricaded the door with the logsand fagots which formed Gammer's store of firewood,and felt safe.

But it was not until the angry voices had quitedied away in the distance, and we heard again thequiet plashing of the water among the rushes, thatwe could quiet the poor old woman so that shewould let go her clasp of our hands. Then she letus kindle a fire, and wrap her in warm dry things.

We wanted to lay her in a clean comfortable bedwhich was made in the corner of the hut. But thisshe would not suffer. "It is Cicely's," she said."It's not for me." So we had to pack her up ascomfortably as we could upon the heap of strawand rags laid on an old chest, which was her bed.

There she lay quite still for a long time, whileAunt Gretel and I sat silent by the fire, hoping shewould sleep.

"This moment!" said she, starting up any tryingto walk. But the terrors of the night had madeher so faint and feeble, that she fell helplessly back.

"This moment, Mistress Olive!" she repeated, ina faint querulous voice, very unlike her usual sharpfirm tones—"this moment! The poor maid mightcome and try the door, and go away, and nevercome again. I've been sharp with her, I know,and she might be afraid, not knowing, poor lamb,how I watch for her."

"God will care for us, Olive," said she with afaltering voice. "He will know and care; He whonever closes the door against us."

By the window she meant a rough crevice in thewall, with a canvas curtain hung before it.

"Hardly that to-night," said she. "It mightguide any evil-disposed people here."

"It will guide her, and what does it matter foranything else?" said Gammer Grindle, almostfiercely. "She knew there was always a lightburning, and if she saw none, she might think Iwas dead, and turn away."

"What'll they think's come to you, mymistresses? What a selfish old woman I've been.Why didn't I let them do for me, and be quiet. Inever knew before what fear was. I've wished todie scores of times; but when death came near, Iclung to life like a drowning dog or cat, and nevercared who I pulled in to save myself. I neverthought I should live to be such a pitiful oldcoward. But the Lord's against me," she cried, goingback to her old wail—"the Lord's against me.Everybody says so, and it must be true. He notonly leaves me to be drowned; He leaves me alsoto be as selfish and wicked as I will. The Lord'sagainst me. Why did you try to save me? I mustfall into His hands at last!"

"You are a little better than those bad men, mydear woman," said she. "You, none of you, cansee the difference between the good God and thedevil. You talk of falling into His hands, as if Hisarms were hell. And all the while He is stretchingout His arms that you may fall on His heart. Youslander, grandmother, you slander God!" she added.

"Much the same in the end," moaned poorGammer, "if we're going against each other."

"It is not the same," said Aunt Gretel. "Youcan turn and go with Him, and He will not have todrive you home. You can bow under his yoke, andyou will not feel it heavy. You can bow underHis rod, and you will find it comfort you as muchas His staff."

"Not so easy, mistress," said Gammer, after apause. "I have turned from Him so long, how canI know if I should have a welcome?"

"That is what Cicely is waiting for, Gammer,"I whispered, kneeling down beside. "But the dooris open and the light is burning for her. If shecould only know! if she could only have a glimpseinside!"

"If she could only know!" murmured the poorold woman, her eyes moistening as she turned fromthe thought of her own sorrows to those of her lostchild.

And she said no more. But there was somethingin the quiet of her face which made me hope thatshe herself had got a "glimpse inside."

Aunt Gretel and I were left to our watch. Then,for the first time, when we ceased to watch for sleepto come over the poor exhausted aged frame, Ibegan to watch the noises outside, and feel a creepinghorror as I listened to the slow cold plashing ofthe water among the rushes, and the soughing, andwailing, and whistling of the wind among theleafless boughs of the wood behind us. There wasone gnarled old oak especially, just outside thehouse, whose dry boughs creaked in the wind as ifthey had been dead beams instead of living branches.

Often I thought I heard long sighs and wailingsas of human voices, and with difficulty persuadedmyself that it was fancy. But at last there camesounds which could not be mistaken—low whistles,and short, peculiar cries, responded to by others,until we became sure that a number of men must bemoving about in the darkness around us. At firstAunt Gretel and I thought it must be thewitch-finders come again for Gammer Grindle, and verysoftly we replaced the logs to barricade the door.

But other sounds began to mingle with those ofhuman voices, like the lowings of cattle forciblydriven. Suddenly I remembered my encounter thatvery morning with the royal troopers, which, withall that happened since, seemed weeks distant.

"That accounts for their not sending after us,"said Aunt Gretel. "They have tried to reach us,no doubt, and cannot."

Then came something like a soft knock and a lowcry, which seemed close to the door, and a heavythud as of something falling. But, though welistened breathlessly, no second sound came; andthe old stories of supernatural horrors haunting theplace crept back to us, and kept us motionless.

By this time the dawn was slowly creeping in,and making the lamp in the window red and dim.

We sat crouching close together by the embersof the dying fire, and took each others' hands, andlistened.

The voices came nearer, till we could plainlydistinguish them, and with them the sound oftrampling: feet of men and horses, and then of menspringing from the saddle and approaching thehut.

"It's the old witch's den," a gruff voice said;"she's burning a candle to the devil. No one evergot good by going near her."

"One would think you were a Roundhead, fromthe respect with which you mention the old enemy'sname. At all events, witches don't live, like saints,on air and prayers. We'll get some warmth andcomfort this bitter night out of the old hag's stores.Some sack or malmsey, perchance, and a fat caponor two bewitched from good men's cellars andlarders. Stay here, if you are afraid. And I willstorm this witch's castle for you," And his longheavy stride approached the door. We sat withbeating hearts, expecting the rickety door to beshaken or forced in by a strong hand. But instead,the steps suddenly ceased, and the intruder seemedto start back as if struck by an invisible hand onthe threshold.

Then there was an exclamation of amazementand horror, ending in a fearful oath in a low deeptone, very different from Sir Launcelot's usualbravado. Afterwards a few hasty retreating steps,and as he rejoined his men, some words in the oldlight tone, but hurried and wild as of one overactinghis part.

"Belike you are right, lads. Black art or white,better keep to beer of mortal brewing than seizeanything from a witch's caldron, or touch anythingof a witch's brood. Besides, the country will beawake, and it's as well we were in safe quarterswith the booty. Steady, and look out tor pitfallsin this cursed place."

After which there was a splashing of horses' feeton the reedy margin of the Mere. Then a heavytrampling as they reached firmer ground, succeededby a sharp gallop across the meadow, until everysound was lost in the distance, and we were left inthe silence to listen once more to the cold plashingof the water among the rushes, and to the breathingof poor old Gammer in her heavy sleep, as wewatched the slow breaking of the morning.

We had not sat half an hour after the last trampof the horsemen had died away, when we heard afaint sound as of something stirring on the threshold.

"What made Sir Launcelot turn back, Olive?"she whispered. "He is scarcely a man likely todream dreams or see visions."

By one impulse we softly removed the logs withwhich we had barricaded the door, and opened it.

There was a rude porch outside to keep off thebeat of the weather, and under it a low seat whereGammer used to sit in summer and carry on anywork that needed more light than could be had inthe hut.

Across this lay stretched, in a death-like swoon,the form of a woman. She was half kneeling, halfprostrate, her head towards the door, resting on theseat, one arm beneath it, the other fallen helplessby her side, half hidden in a heavy mass of longhair. A puny little child lay cuddled up close toher, clasping the unconscious form with both arms,asleep.

The features were sharp as with age, and pallidas with the touch of death, and the long soft hairwas gray, but it was still easy to recognise in thesharp and altered face what memories it had broughtback to Sir Launcelot, and why that poor fadedform had guarded her threshold from him betterthan an army of fiends.

We took her up between us. It was easy. Shewas light enough to carry. We laid her on the oldbed which her grandmother had kept always readyfor her. Aunt Gretel loosened her dress and chafedher hands, while I took the poor puny child to thefire to keep it quiet while I made some warm drinkto revive the mother.

But the poor sickly little one was not easily tobe quieted. In spite of all my soothing it awoke,and began wailing for mammy. Perhaps, after all,the best restorative! The sharp fretful cry arousedthe mother from her swoon, and the grandmotherfrom her heavy sleep.

In another instant the old woman was kneelingby the poor girl's bedside, clasping and fondlingher, and calling her by tender, endearing, childishnames, such as no one at Netherby would havedreamed could have poured forth from GammerGrindle's lips. The first words Cicely spoke whenshe fully recovered consciousness and sate up (herbeautiful large gray eyes gleaming from her fadedhollow cheeks like living souls among a pale troopof ghosts), were,—

"Gammer, I heard him—I heard his voice.Where is he? I thought I saw his face. But itwas dusk, and faces change. But voices will bethe same, I think, even in heaven or in hell. AndI heard his voice, the same as when he called medarling and wife."

"Wife!" said the old woman, starting and standingerect. "Say that again, Cicely."

"All in vain, Gammer!" she said, with a slowhopeless tone. "With the priest and the ring!But it was all false. He told me so when it wastoo late. He said I must have known. But howwas I to know, Gammer? I trusted him; I trustedhim. Yet, perhaps, I ought to have known better,Gammer? I suppose it must have been wicked ofme. Every one seems to think it was."

"Not me, sweetheart!" the old woman cried;"never me! Thank God, my lamb comes back to meas pure as she went. Thank God, Cicely my darling,thank God, sweetheart, and take courage. If allthe cruel world hunted my lamb to death and criedshame on her, there's one in the world who knowsshe's as pure as the sweetest lady that ever trodthe church floor in her bride's white, with her pathstrewn with roses." Then, taking the child in herarms, and cuddling it to her, she added, "And thychild's as much a crown of joy to thee and me,Cicely, as to any lady in the land. Take courage,sweetheart. What does all the world matter, ifgrandmother knows; and Him that's above,darling," she added, in a voice faltering again intofeebleness. "For He is above, Cicely, and He's notagainst us, for He's brought thee home."

All this time the old woman and Cicely hadseemed quite unconscious of our presence, as we satin a shadowed corner of the dark old hut, keepingas quiet as sobs would let us. But when the poorgirl was calmed by the long-forgotten relief of aburst of tears on a heart that trusted her, shelooked up and around with a quieter glance, and beganto ask again how it could be that she had heard thevoice.

She started, and covered her face with her hands,as if she would have hidden herself.

"It's only me, Cicely, Olive Drayton," I said, asplainly as I could for weeping. "You've comeback among those that know you and trust you,Cicely."

Then, after giving her such explanation as I couldof the events of the night, and after Aunt Gretelhad made up the fire, we bade them farewell, andleft the three together to go over the mournfulhistory that lay between their meetings; whilewe hastened away to assure those at home of oursafety.

"Things come often thus in life," said she, "asfar as I have seen; the fruits ripened through thelong silent year, reaped in a day." I scarcelyunderstood her then, but since, I have often thoughtshe was right. Sowing-times and growing-times,long, silent, underground; and then bursts offlowering days, reapings and gatherings; a life-time ina day; a thousand long-prepared events burstinginto flower in a moment. A thousand ghosts offorgotten deeds gathered together and confrontingus at one point. The probation thousands of years;the Judgment a day.

Aunt Dorothy was a little doubtful as to ourhaving too much commerce with Gammer Grindleor Cicely. "If Gammer was not a witch," said she,"which God forbid—though that there are witcheswho ill-wish cattle, and ride on broom-sticks, is ascertain as there are wandering stars and sea-serpents;at all events it is a solemn warning to everyone on the danger of not going to church like yourneighbours. And if Cicely was not as bad as hadbeen feared—for which God be praised—she wasnevertheless an awful example of the danger ofdancing round May-poles, and wearing bits ofribbons and roses on your head."

"One would think," said he, "the Book of Jobhad been put into the Apocrypha, that men whoprofess themselves Christians should go worryingthe afflicted like Zophar, Bildad, and Eliphaz,heaping coals on the devil's furnace. Witches therewere, no doubt, poor wretches, or they could nothave been hanged and burned, although for the mostpart he believed the devil was too good a generalto let his soldiers waste their time in cavalcadingabout on broom-sticks. But, be that as it might, itwas ill work piling wood on fires that were hotenough already, especially when you could not besure who had kindled the flames. The only comfortwas, that after all the devil was nothing morethan the Almighty's furnace-heater. All his toil onlywent to heating it to the right point to fuse thesilver. The Master would see that none of the truemetal was lost."

At the end of February, Roger came to us. Hewas pale with prison-air and meagre from prison-fare,and the hair had grown on his upper lip. Inmy eyes he had gained far more than he had lost.His eyes had a look of purpose and command inthem, pleasant to yield to; though little enough ofcommand had he exercised during the last fourmonths, except, indeed, that command of himselfwhich is true obedience, and lies at the root of alltrue command.

The history of what he had seen and heard droppedfrom him in broken sentences, as he went aboutseeing to various little plans for strengthening thedefences of the house, or as he repaired or cleanedhis arms in the evening. Of what he had sufferedhe said nothing, except to make light of it inanswer to any questioning of mine. More than oncehe mentioned, in a few brief words, Lady Lucy'skindness. But he did not speak at all of Letticeexcept once, when we were all sitting togetherround the Hall fire—Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Gretel,and I—when he said carelessly, as if he had justremembered it by accident,—

"Mistress Lettice told me she had read the sermonsyou gave her, Aunt Dorothy. And she sentyou her love, Olive."

"There are gracious dispositions in the child,"said Aunt Dorothy. "I have been sure of it for along time."

"Her dear love, I think it was," said he dryly, asif the adjective made little difference in the valueof the substantive.

"I only saw her for ten minutes, Olive," said he,a little impatiently, "and most of the time she wastalking to a little French poodle, a little wretch withwool like a sheep and eyes like glass-beads."

"You are hard on the poor child, Roger," saidAunt Dorothy; "consider her bringing up. I warrantshe never spun a web, or learned a chapter inProverbs through in her life. What can youexpect from a mother who is a friend of the Popishqueen, and, I am only too sure, wears false hair andpaint?"

"Aunt Dorothy," said he, firing up, "the LadyLucy is as near a ministering angel as any creatureI ever wish to see. And if it were not so, it's notfor me, who have lived on her bread and on herkind looks for months, to hear a word against her."

And Roger arose, and strode out of the hall andacross the court, whistling for Lion; leaving AuntDorothy in perplexity as to whether he were moreaggrieved with her for defending Lettice or forassailing Lady Lucy, and me in equal perplexity asto how I could ever venture to introduce Lettice'sname again, longing as I did to hear more of her.

"You never saw Lettice after she gave you thatmessage?" I ventured at last to say one day whenwe were walking alone together.

"How could I, Olive?" said he, "I went awayinstantly; except indeed," he added, "when Ihappened to look back, as I was leaving the court, Isaw her standing at the window with that poodlein her arms. But I did not look again, for at thesame moment Sir Launcelot Trevor came out ofanother door, looking as if he were, as no doubt heis, quite at home in the place with them all."

"O Roger," I said, "some of us ought to writeto Lady Lucy at once to say how wicked he is!"

"What is the use, Olive?" said he, sadly. "Itis not from us, rebels and traitors, she will believeevil of a good Cavalier. Least of all from me ormine about Sir Launcelot!" he added, in a lowervoice.

"But he may be deceiving them all," I said,passionately. "It is a sin to let him. Can nothingbe done? Have you never thought of it?"

"You had better ask me could I think of nothingelse, Olive?" said he. "For I had to ask myselfthat many times as I paced up and down in prison,and knew about it all. And the more I thought,the more helpless I saw we were about it."

"I decided thatthis was what the Civil War cost,"he replied; "not battles and loss of limb or lifeonly, but misunderstandings and loss of friends.To have all we say and do reported to those welove best through those who think the worst of us,and to have no power of saying a word in justificationor explanation. To be identified with theworst men and the most violent acts on our side,and, in loyalty to the principles of our party, notto be able to disown them. To see often thepeople we love best estranged more and more from theprinciples we hold dearest; and to watch a greatgulf widening between us which no voice of mancan reach across."

"I feel sure nothing and no one could make Letticethink harshly of us, Roger," I exclaimed; "Ifeel as sure as if I had been speaking to her yesterday."

"How can it be otherwise, Olive?" said he,"especially when I am under Colonel Cromwell. Youshould have seen the little start and scornful lookshe gave when I mentioned his name. 'Colonel!'said she, almost under her breath, as if she weretalking only to that poodle. But I heard herThere is no one the Cavaliers hate like him."

"It seems almost a pity you must be with him!"I said, thinking only of Roger and Lettice.

"A pity, Olive!" said he, flashing up. "TheCavaliers hate Colonel Cromwell, because whereverhe is there is doing instead of debating. And forwhat better reason can we hold to him? If wefight at all, it is because we believe there issomething worth fighting for to be lost or won; andwhere Colonel Cromwell is, it is won. The countryhe defends is defended; the city he holds isheld; the men he trains fight; and, thank God, mylot is with him, to defend the old liberties under him,Olive, or, if he fails, to find new liberty in the NewEngland across the seas."

The next day Roger went off to join his regimentat Cambridge, where Colonel Cromwell was.

How silent and languid the old house seemedwhen he left us, without his firm, soldier-like treadclearing the stairs at a few bounds, and his whistleto the dogs, and his voice singing with a firm precision,like the tramp of a regiment, snatches of thegrave, grand old psalm tunes which the Ironsidesloved to march to!

A fortnight afterwards, Job Forster followedhim. And then came again months of listeningand waiting, and of contradictory rumours, endingtoo often in ill-tidings worse than the worst we hadfeared.

For that whole year brought little but disaster tothe Parliament troops. Day after day in thatyellow old Diary of mine is marked with black tidingsof defeat and death.

"June 18.—Mr. Hampden wounded in trying tokeep off Prince Rupert's plunderers, until LordEssex came. Lord Essex did not come in time, andMr. Hampden went off the field sorely wounded.They say he felt himself death-stricken, and turnedhis horse towards the house of his first wife, whomhe loved so dearly, that he might die there. Buthis strength failed. It was as much as he could doto make one last effort, and spurring his horse overa little brook which bounded the field, to find hisway to the nearest village, and home.

"June 24.—Mr. Hampden died, thinking to thelast more of his country than himself. In themidst of terrible pain he wrote (my Father tells us)to entreat Lord Essex to act with more vigour, andto collect his forces round London. He receivedthe sacrament, and spoke with affection of theservices of the Church of England, although notaltogether so of her bishops. He received the Lord'sSupper, and for himself looked humbly andpeacefully to God. But for England his heart lookedsorrowfully onward. And his last words were,'Lord, have mercy on my bleeding country;' andthen another prayer, the end not heard by mortalears. My Father writes: 'His love for his countrywill scarce fail in the better country whither he isgone. But his counsel and all his slowly garneredtreasures of wisdom are lost to us for ever.'"

"September 20.—A battle at Newbury, inGloucestershire. Lord Falkland killed. OnceHampden's friend, and now (must it not be?) his friendagain. A good man, and gentle, and wise, theysay. I wonder how it all looks and sounds therewhere they are gone."

"November.—Mr. Pym is dead. They have buriedhim among the kings in Westminster Abbey. Iwonder how many of the people who began the warwill be fighting at the end of it, and whether theywill be fighting for the same things as when theybegan."

Then, mixed up with these notices of the dead,are long accounts of skirmishes and fights, whichevery one thought all-important then, but which noone thinks of now, save those who have their beloveddead lying beneath the fields where they werefought.

And through it all a steady going downward anddownward of the Parliament cause, from that fatalJune, 1643, when Hampden died, to near the closeof the following year.

"July 13.—Sir William Waller (once vainlyboasted of as William the Conqueror) defeated, andhis army scattered, in Lansdowne.

And so the war surged away to the RoyalistWest and Royalist North, until in all the WestCountry not a city was left to the Parliament butGloucester; and in the North Country, not a citybut Hull, which the Hothams had been baffled inan attempt to betray to the king; whilst in thecounties between, Prince Rupert and the plundererswere having it much their own way. Very eviltimes we thought them. And many different reasonswere assigned for the failure of the good cause.Aunt Dorothy feared it was a punishment for alicentious spirit of toleration to zealots and sectaries,and the sins of the Independents. The zealouspreacher who came from Suffolk occasionally toexpound at Job Forster's meeting, was sure it wascarnal compromise lording it over God's heritage,and the sins of the Presbyterians. And Rachelbelieved it was the sins of us all, and of herself inparticular, who had, she considered, been too much likeAnanias and Sapphira, in that she had professed togive the whole price to God and then would fainhave kept back the half, having indulged thedeceitful hope that Job was so wounded as never tobe able to go to the wars again.

Placidia and Mr. Nicholls were much "exercised." Especiallysince the loss of the three parsonagecows, which were (by what Aunt Dorothyconsidered a very solemn warning to Placidia) sweptoff with my Father's by the plunderers from themeadow by the Mere. "There were two texts,"said Placidia, "which had always seemed to herexceedingly hard to reconcile. One was, 'Godlinesshath promise of the life which now is as wellas of that which is to come.' And the other,'Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.' Whatcould be done with texts so exceedingly difficult toreconcile as these?"

"Give up trying to reconcile them at all, mydear. Let them fight, as frost and heat do, fire andwater, sunshine and storm; and out of the strifecome the flower and the fruit, spring-time andharvest, which shall never cease. Not that I see anydifficulty in it. The promise is not meadows orcows, but grace and peace. The perplexity is overwhen you make up your mind that what you wantis not to feel warm for a day or two, but to havethings grow; not a few sunny hours, but the harvest."

Perhaps among us all, the person least perplexedby these continued disasters was Aunt Gretel;because, leaving the whole field of politics asaltogether too complicated for her to comprehend, shecontinued to see only the links which bind everyday to the Eternal Day, and every event to thehand of the merciful Father; and thus her chiefwonders ever were the pity which forgave so manysins, and the love which provided so many mercies.Overlooking all the battles and skirmishes aroundus, she saw but one Battle and one Battle-field, andbut two Captains. Overlooking all the subordinatedivisions of nations and parties, she saw only aflock and a Shepherd, and the Shepherd calling eachone by one, from the Great Gustavus to little Cicelyand poor Tim; folded, one, in the heavenly fold ofwhich he knew nothing till he was in it, and theother in the poor earthly house which she and herchild and her grateful love had made, once more, ahome and a refuge for poor old Gammer. For sinceCicely's return, Gammer's broken links with herfellow-creatures began to be knit again; and morethan one at Netherby took Job's words to heart.The broad shield of her love and welcome whichshe threw around the wanderer had shielded herself.

But side by side with the doleful records in myDiary run two series of letters full of victory andhope.

One was to my Father from Dr. Antony, whospent most of that period in London. And there,throughout all these disasters, the courage of thecitizens seemed never to fail.

When Lord Essex returned from Edgehill withvery doubtful success, which he had entirely failedto convert into lasting gain by his hesitations anddelays, London, of as brave and generous a heartas old Rome, voted him £5,000.

When Bristol fell before Prince Rupert, and everycity in the west save Gloucester fell into the handsof the king, and Lord Essex timidly recommendedaccommodation with His Majesty, and the Lordswould have petitioned him, the Commons, thePreachers, and the citizens (knowing that noaccommodation with the king could be relied onunless secured by victory) rejected all such waveringthoughts. The shops were all shut for some days,not to make holiday, but for solemn fasting. Thesedays were spent in the churches, and the peoplecame forth from them ready for any sacrifice forthe eternal truth and the ancient liberty. It wasdetermined to surround London with entrenchments.Knights and dames went forth, spade inhand, to the beat of drum, to share in the diggingof the trenches, and to hearten others to the work.And in a few days twelve miles of entrenchmentwere dug. Whereof we heard His Majesty tooknotice, and lost heart thereby.

Throughout all those adverse times London neverlost heart. Plate and jewels kept pouring into theParliament's treasury at Guildhall. Time spent bythe 'prentices in the Parliament army was ruled tocount as time served in their trades. And jestsagainst the courage of men bred in streets andtrained behind counters lost their point. Dr. Antony'sletters through all that dreary time had thecheer and stir of a triumphal march in them,although he had no triumphs to relate, but onlydefeats borne with the courage which repairs them,and although he himself went to the battle-fieldnot to wound but to bind up wounds.

The other series of letters was from Roger. Andthese cheered us, because they always told ofvictory. They were brief, and mostly written fromthe battle-field, to assure us at once of victory andsafety. They crossed the dark shadows of myDiary like sunbeams. In June, when we weremourning over the death of Hampden, and overthe slow debates of the Lord-General what to dofirst for the bleeding country, wounded in everypart by the stabs of plunderers and recklessCavaliers, came Roger's first letter, delayed on its way,dated, "Grantham, 18th May, 1643." It spoke ofa glorious victory won that day against marvellousodds of number, the enemy running away for threemiles, four colours taken, and forty-five prisoners,and many prisoners rescued. Again in July, whenwe were bewailing the Fairfaxes defeated atAtherton Moor in the north, Sir William Waller's armyrouted at Lansdowne Heath in the west, and Bristollost, Roger was writing us, on the 31st, newsfrom Gainsborough of a "notable victory with achase of six miles."

Mingled with these good tidings were sayingswhich Roger had heard of Colonel Cromwell's.Some of these sayings were like proverbs, so closelydid the word fit the thought. Others had in themthe ring of a war-song, as when he wrote to theCommissioners at Cambridge. "You see by thisenclosed how sadly your affairs stand. It's nolonger disputing, but out instantly all you can.Raise all your bands; send them to Huntingdon;get up what volunteers you can; hasten your horses.Send these letters to Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essexwithout delay. I beseech you, spare not. You mustact lively; do it without distraction. Neglect nomeans." Yet often it seemed, when you listenedto Colonel Cromwell, as if it were by somemarvellous accident his thoughts did ever tumble intotheir right clothes, so strangely did they comelumbering out. But every now and then, if youhad patience, amidst the rattling of the roughstones and pebbles, flashed a sentence, sharp cutand brilliant as a diamond, although, apparently, asunconscious of its polish and sharpness as the restof their uncouth ness. "Subtilty may deceive you,integrity never will;" "Truly, God follows us withencouragements, who is the God of blessings; andI beseech you, let him not lose his blessing uponus! They come in season, and with all the advantagesof heartening, as if God should say, 'Up andbe doing, and I will stand by you and help you!' Thereis nothing to be feared but our own sin andsloth." "If I could speak words to pierce yourhearts with the sense of our and your condition, Iwould. It may be difficult to raise so many menin so short time; but let me assure you it's necessary,and, therefore, to be done." "God hath givenreputation to our handful (the Ironsides), let usendeavour to keep it. I had rather have a plain,russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, andloves what he knows, than that which you call 'agentleman' and nothing else. I honour a gentlemanthat is so indeed."

"Yet," said Roger in one of his letters, "it givesyou little knowledge of what the Colonel is toextract these bits of his sayings, and make thememphatic, as if he meant them for epigrams, when theforce is that they are said without force; thethought and purpose in him, which always go tothe point in deeds, from time to time flashingstraight to the point in words, which are then asstrong as other men's deeds. But this I know,when he says of us, 'We never find our men socheerful as when there is work to do,' or, 'God hathgiven reputation to our handful,' we all feel as ifwe were dubbed knights, and were moving aboutglorious with Royal Orders."

So, slowly as the year passed on, some of usbegan dimly to feel that a kingly being had arisenamong us, such a king as David was before he wascrowned, when he ruled in the hearts of the thousandsof Israel by right of the slain giant and thesecret anointing of the seer; a mighty man, whofelt nothing impossible which he believed right,with whom, if a thing was "necessary," it was "tobe done."

CHAPTER X.

Oxford,January 30th, 1644.—AnotherChristmas, and another birthday, shutup within these monkish old stone walls.To my mother the chapel, with thepainted windows, and the organ, and the dailyservices, makes up for much that we lose. But as tome, when I hear the same sounds, and see the samesights, from day to day, I scarcely seem to hear orsee them at all. They do not wake my soul up.The sacred music of the woods and fields seems todo me more good, at least on week-days. For it issacred, and it is never the same. And the choristersthere, while they are singing their psalms, arebusy all the time building their nests, and findingfood for their nestlings, which make their songs allthe more tender and sacred to me.

"Yet it is wrong to complain. It is somethingto have my Father and my seven brothers stilluntouched, after being exposed during all this time tothe risks of the war. I dread to think what a gulfwould yawn between me and Olive, and all ofthem, if once one very dear to either of us fell inthe strife.

"I have nothing to complain of, but that thingsdo not change; and with what a passion of regretI should long for one of these unchanging days, ifone of the terrible changes that might come, came.

"A wretched phantom of a Parliament appearedhere on the 22nd of January. I would the kinghad not summoned it. We should leave it to therebels, I think, to deal with shows and phantomsof real things, with their presumptuous talk ofcolonels and generals. I would his Majesty hadnot encountered their pretence of royal authority,with this pretence of Parliamentary debate. SixtyLords and a hundred Commons, or thereabouts,moving helplessly about these old Universitystreets, with no more power or life in them than theeffigies of the saints and crusaders in the churches.Indeed far less, for the effigies are memorials ofpersons who once were alive, and this Parliament isnothing but a copy of the clothes and trappings ofa power now living. The king does not consultthem, and the nation does not heed them, and theyonly show how real the division is amongst us.The king himself calls them the 'mongrelParliament.' His Majesty is so grand and majestic whenhe is grave, I feel one could give up anything tobring a happy smile over his sad and kinglycountenance. But I would he did not make these jests.Many grave persons, I have noticed, when they setabout jesting, are apt to do it rather cruelly. Theirjests want feathers. They fall heavily, weightedwith the gravity of their character, and instead ofpleasantly pricking and stimulating, they wound.Therefore I wish His Majesty would not jest.Especially about Parliaments and the navy. Peopleare apt not to see the wit of being called 'cats,'or 'water-rats,' or 'mongrel.' They only feel thesting.

"March.—The Scottish General Leslie has led anarmy over the Borders. Traitor! When the kingwas so gracious as to create him Earl of Leven buta few years since. Oh, faithless Scottish men!Infatuated by a thing they call Presbytery, andtreacherous to their compatriot and anointed king!

"June, 1644.—Another summer within the wallsof this old city. Another summer away from thewoods at home. I am tempted sometimes to wishthe war would end in any way. Politics perplexme more and more. So many people wishing thesame thing, for contrary reasons. So many peoplewishing contrary things for the same reasons. Somany on our side whom one hates; so many againstus whom we honour. The best men doing theworst mischief by beginning the strife; and thendying, or doubting, and giving place to the worstmen, who finish it—if ever it is to be finished.Hampden gone, and Lord Falkland; and the namesone hears most of now, Prince Rupert and thisOliver Cromwell. They call him General now.What next? A country gentleman, none of themost notable or of the greatest condition, eking outhis farming, some way, with brewing ale, atHuntingdon, until he was forty-two—and at forty-five,forsooth, General Cromwell, with men of conditioncapping to receive his orders. A fanatic, moreover,who preaches in the open-air to his men betweenthe battles.

"A cheerful life for Roger Drayton, methinks!For commander, this fanatic brewer; for comrades,preaching tailors and fighting cobblers; forrecreation, General Cromwell's sermons; and for martialmusic, Sir Launcelot says, Puritan Psalms, entonedpathetically through the nose. A change for RogerDrayton from Mr. Milton's organ-playing, or themadrigals we sang at Netherby. And yet Iquestion whether our Harry would not find even thatdoleful Puritan music more to his taste than manya mocking Cavalier ditty wherewith our menentertain themselves. The times are grave enough, andI doubt sometimes but the Puritan music suitsthem best.

"July 20.—Terrible tidings, if true. LordNewcastle and Prince Rupert defeated at Marston Moor,on the 2nd of July, by the Earl of Manchester andCromwell. A hundred colours taken, and all thebaggage; the royal army scattered in all directions.And ten days afterwards, York surrendered. LoyalYork, in the heart of the loyal North, His Majesty'sfirst retreat from his faithless capital!

"Strange that men speak more of Oliver Cromwellthan of the Earl of Manchester in this battle.Strange, if it is true, as some say, that this firebrandwas already in a ship bound for flight to America afew years since, when the king forbade him to go.My Father says, however, that the man who reallywon the victory for the Parliament was Prince Rupert,who, saith he, is no general, but a mere recklesschief of foraging-parties. It was he who hurriedthe Marquis of Newcastle into battle, against hisjudgment. And now it is reported that my LordNewcastle, despairing of himself, with such associates(or of the cause with such leaders), has takenship for France. I would it were the Palatineprinces instead. Their standard was taken atMarston Moor.

"Three of my brothers were there; one wounded,but not severely; the other two have gonenorthward we know not where.

"Harry is much with us, being about the king'sperson. He will have nothing to do with theprince's plundering parties. But he chafes athaving missed this battle, and is eager for the king togo westward to inspire and reward loyal Devon andCornwall by his presence, and to pursue my LordEssex, who has gone thither with the rebel forces.

"August.—The queen embarked on the 14th ofJuly for France. I marvel she can bear to put theseas between her and the king at such times asthese. But my Mother says she could not help it,and sacrifices herself most, and most to the purpose,by taking off the burden, of her safety from HisMajesty, and going among her royal kindred, whomshe may stir up to fight. And indeed she did essayto rejoin the king. After the birth of the littleprincess at Exeter, she asked my Lord Essex for asafe-conduct to the Bath to drink the waters; but heoffered her instead a safe-conduct to London, 'where,'quoth he, 'she would find the best physicians.' Asorry jest I deem this, inviting her to run into thevery den of the disloyal parliament, which latelydared to 'impeach' her.

"Rebel galleys followed her from Torbay, butshe escaped safe to Brest, and I trow the king'saffection for her is so true he had rather know hersafe than have her with him. Yet, methinks, in hercase I would not have left it to him to decide. Themore one I so loved cared for my welfare and safety,the more I would delight to risk and dare all.

"August.—They are off to the West, the faithfulWest—the king, and my Father, and Harry, with anarmy enthusiastical in their loyalty, and high inhope and courage. Prince Rupert not with them,and Oliver Cromwell not with the rebels. Surelythere must be great things done!

"Lord Essex's army is ruined, gone, vanished.Not routed in a hard fight, but steadily pursued toFowey, in a corner of loyal Cornwall, there coopedup ingloriously, closer and closer, until the generalwas fain to flee by sea, and the whole of the foothad to surrender. The cavalry, indeed, fought theirway through, which, being Englishmen, I excusethem. But never was ruin more complete.

"Harry writes from Tavistock, where His Majestyhas retired, a small town nestled among woodedhills at the foot of the wild moors, Mr. Pym wasmember for it; nevertheless the place seems notill-disposed.

"November.—Harry is with us. I have never seenhim so in spirits since the war began.

"The royal army received a slight check at Newbury,a place fatal already with the blood of thebrave Lord Falkland.

"But Harry seems to think nothing of that incomparison with the state of things this battle hathrevealed among the rebels. Rebellion, saith he, isat last obeying its own laws, and crumbling awayby its own inherent disorganization.

"After the second battle of Newbury the quietof our life was effectually broken by a threatenedattack on Oxford.

"Artillery booming at our gates, bullets fallingin our streets. At last I had a little taste of realwar. I did not altogether dislike it. There wassomething that made my heart beat firmer in thethought of sharing my brothers' and my Father'sdanger. But then, I must confess, it did not comevery near. The walls were still between us and theenemy. After a short cannonading the rebels drewoff, from a cause, Harry says, worth us manyvictories. Lord Essex and Sir William Waller, their twogenerals, could not agree, and between them theattack on Oxford was abandoned; and what wasmore, the king, who was encamped outside the city,with a force in numbers quite unequal to cope withtheir combined forces, was suffered to retreatwithout a blow to Worcester.

"But better than all. Harry says the rebelgenerals are assailing each other with all kinds ofreproaches in the Parliament, accusing each other asthe cause of all the late failures. Lord Essex, LordManchester, and Sir William Waller, none of themcordially uniting with each other against us, but allmost cordially uniting in assailing Oliver Cromwell,who is the only one among them we have cause todread. And to complete the mêlée, the Scotchpreachers are having their say in the matter, andsolemnly accuse Mr. Cromwell of being an 'Incendiary!'

"Which is quite plain to us he is. So that now,when the Incendiaries themselves have set about tofight each other, and to put out the flames, it isprobable the arson will be avenged, the flameswillbe put out, and we quiet and loyal subjects shallhave nothing left to do but to rebuild the ruins.

"Then we will try to say as little as we can aboutwho began the mischief, and only see who can workbest in repairing it.

"The King and the Parliament throughout theland, and the Draytons and the Davenants at dearold Netherby."

"Marston Moor, July 3d.—To my dear sisterMistress Olive Drayton.—On the battle-field. Amessenger going south will take these.

"Thank God we are here this day. And theenemy is not here, but flying right and left, overmoor and mountain. No such victory has beenvouchsafed us before.

"Yesterday, the 2nd July, early in the morning,we were moving off the ground—Lord Manchester,General Leslie, and General Cromwell.

"Prince Rupert had gallantly thrown provisionsinto York, which we were beleaguering; but thegenerals thought he would not venture an attackon our combined forces.

"It took us till three in the day to face round,front them, and secure the position we wanted.There is a rye field here with a ditch in front,where the dead bear witness how we had to fightfor it.

"At three, Prince Rupert gave their battle-cry:'For God and the king;' and we ours: 'God with us.' Fromthree till five we pounded each other with thegreat guns. But little impression was made oneither side. And at five there was a pause. Twohours' silence, confronting each other, from five toseven. Such silence as may be where many arewounded, and many are waiting in agonies for thesummons to die, while the rest were waiting for thesummons to charge. At last, at seven, it came.

"Our foot, under Lord Manchester, ran across theditch before that rye field for which they had foughtso hard. Thus far was clear to all. The rest weknow only from comparing what we did, and seeingwhat we had done afterwards. For immediatelyon the attack of the foot came the charges of thehorse. The left wing of the king's army on ourright they all but routed, driving the LordManchester, Lord Fairfax, and the old veteran Lesliefrom the field. Meantime our right—that is, we,the Ironsides with the general—charged their left.We were not beaten. I trust we gave him noreason to be ashamed of us. But everywhere thefighting was hard. Having discharged our pistols, weflung them from us and fell to it with swords. Thencame the shock, like two seas meeting, each manencountering the foe before him, but few knowinghow the day was speeding elsewhere, till we foundourselves with the whole front of the battle changed,each victorious wing having wheeled round as theyfought, and standing where the enemy had stoodwhen the fight began. Then came up GeneralCromwell's reserves with General Leslie's, anddecided the day, sending Prince Rupert and hisplunderers flying headlong through the gathering dusk.It was the first time they had encountered theIronsides. Their broken horse trampled, as they fled,on the broken and flying foot, we spurring afterthem, till within a mile of York. Arms, ammunition,baggage, colours, all cast away in the madterror of the flight. To within a mile from Yorkwe followed them, and then turned back, and slepton the battle-field.

"Another silence, Olive; not as before, inexpectation of another fight, but with our work done,and four thousand dead around us to be buried.

"Job Forster is safe, and would have you tellRachel that the Lord has sent Israel a judge at last,and all must go right now.

"When I awoke, the summer morning was shiningon the field, and I wondered how I could haveslept with all those sights and sounds around me.But, thank God, I did, for there is more to be doneyet. York has to be taken.

"Tell Rachel, by using my military authority, Igot Job to lie down in my place, while I went roundwith Dr. Antony. At first he wavered. But Isaid: 'The general is sharp on any of us whoneglect our arms or powder. And the body has to belooked to as well as the powder.' Whereon he laydown in my cloak, and in a minute was beyond thereach of any rousing, short of a cannonade.

"N.B.—Two young Davenants fought well afew yards from me; scarcely more than lads.

"York, the 15th July.—York has surrendered.The North is ours. This moment returned from athanksgiving in the minster. The grandest musicof the organ scarce, I think, could have echoedmore solemnly among the old roofs and arches thanthat psalm, sung by the thousands of rough soldiers'voices. King David was a soldier, and knew howto make such psalms as soldiers need. Nor do Ithink the old minster has often seen a congregationmore serious and devout. If some on the Cavalierside had heard it, they could scarce have saidafterwards, our Puritan religion lacked its solemnities.Our solemnities begin indeed within; but when thetide of devotion is high and deep enough, no musiclike that it makes in overflowing."

To Roger, as to any one borne on the chariot ofthe sun, the whole world seemed full of light. Tous, however, meanwhile in the Fens, things seemedverging more and more from twilight into night.

Not much more than a month after the letter ofRoger's concerning the surrender of York, cametidings which, it seemed to us, more thancounterbalanced these advantages.

The royal letter post, lately established on thegreat North Road between London and Edinburgh,and southward between London and Plymouth, hadbeen interrupted during the war. Netherby lay inthe line of one of the more recent branch-posts;and we missed at first the pleasant sound of thehorn which the postman was commanded to blowfour times every hour, besides at the posting-stations.

At first Aunt Dorothy had rather rejoiced. Shehad been wont to say it was a grievous interferencewith the liberty of the subject, that we should becompelled to send all our letters by the hands ofthe king's messengers, instead of by any privatecarrier we chose. And, moreover, she deemed ithighly derogatory to His Majesty to demean himselfto take a few pence each letter for such services.But a few months of return to the old private method,with all its uncertainties and suspenses, madeher receive the public posts again as a boon, whenthe Commonwealth government re-established them.

It was from Dr. Antony, therefore, that we firstheard the tidings of the Lord Essex's flight fromFowey, and the ruin of his whole army.

He brought two letters from my Father and Roger.My Father's was sad; Roger's was indignant.Both spoke of divisions among the supporters ofthe Parliament. They were written at differenttimes, but reached us together by Dr. Antony'shand as the first safe opportunity. The first wasfrom Roger, dated late in September, speaking ofthe surrender of Lord Essex's foot:—"MarstonMoor with the four thousand that lie dead there,"he wrote, "was after all, it seems, not a steptowards the end. Everything gained there is thrownaway again by the indecisions of noblemen who areafraid to win too much; and old soldiers who willnot move a finger except in the fashion some oneelse moved it a hundred years ago. As if whenwar is once begun, there were any way to peace butby the ruin of one party, except, indeed, by theruin of both; as if a lingering war were a kind ofhalf peace, instead of being as it is, the worst ofwars; the opening of the nation's veins at a thousandpoints, whereby she slowly bleeds to death.Lieutenant-General Cromwell takes sadly to heart thesad conditions of our army in the West. He saith,had we wings we would fly thither. Indeed, wingshe hath at command, in the hearts of his men,'never so cheerful,' he says, 'as when there is workto do.' But there are those whose chief business isto clip these wings, lest affairs fly too fast. Thegeneral saith, 'If we could all intend our own endsless, and our ease too, our business in this armywould go on wheels for expedition.' If he were atthe head of affairs, we should not, in sooth, lackwheels or wrings."

The second letter was from my Father writtenearly in November, after the second battle ofNewbury (fought on the 27th of October).

"It is the old story, I fear, of our Protestant lackof unity. People do not seem able to see that themilitary unity of the Roman Church being broken,the only ecclesiastical unity possible for us is theunity as of an empire, like that of Great Britain,with different races and local constitutions underone sovereign; or the unity as of a family of grown-upchildren, in free obedience to one father. IfLutherans and Calvinists could have merged theirlesser differences in their real agreement, probably thatterrible war, which is still crushing the life out ofGermany, need never have begun. If Prelatists,Presbyterians, and Independents could agree nowto yield each other liberty, this war of ours mightend. But while they had power, Prelatists wouldrather let the nation be torn asunder than toleratePresbyterians. And now the Presbyterians thinkthey have power, they had rather lose everythingwe have gained than tolerate Independents. Themerit of the Independents and Anabaptists being,perhaps, only this, that they never have hadthe power to persecute. I cannot see whither it isall tending.

"We have lost an army in Cornwall; but that islittle. It seems to me some of us are losing all holdof what we are fighting for. This success atNewbury shows our weakness more than the ruin atFowey. Lord Manchester will not pursue the king,lest our last army should be lost; in which case, hesays, His Majesty might hang us all. As if theblock or the gallows had not been the alternativeof success from the beginning. In consequence of adisagreement between him and Sir William Waller,the combined attack on Oxford failed; and elevendays after our success at Newbury, His Majesty'stroops were suffered quietly to withdraw theirartillery from Donington Castle, in face of ourvictorious army lying inactive.

"The indignation in the army is unbounded.But all minor divisions bid fair to resolvethemselves into two great factions of Presbyteriansand Independents; Lieutenant-General Cromwellhaving addressed a remonstrance to the Parliamentagainst Lord Manchester, and Lord Manchester,Lord Essex, and Hollis, with the ScotchCommissioners, being set on crushing GeneralCromwell.

"The quarrel is of no new origin. The affair ofDonington Castle did but set the tinder to thetrain. It dates back to the first setting of theWestminster Assembly, when the Presbyterians,not content with absorbing the Church revenues,which would have been conceded to them, wouldhave had the magistrate imprison and confiscatethe goods of all whom they excommunicated.'Toleration,' said one of them, 'will make thekingdom a chaos, a Babel, another Amsterdam, a Sodom,an Egypt, a Babylon. Toleration is the grandwork of the devil; his masterpiece and chief engineto support his tottering kingdom. It is the mostcompendious, ready, sure way to destroy all religion,lay all waste, and bring in all evil. As originalsin is the fundamental sin, having the seed andspawn of all sin in it, so toleration hath all errorsin it and all evils.' They call toleration the 'greatDiana of the Independents.' Yet no one contendsfor toleration to extend beyond the orthodoxProtestant sects. These divisions set many of usthinking what we are fighting for. It would be scarcelyworth so much blood-shedding to establish onehundred and twenty popes at Westminster, instead ofone at Lambeth. They are golden words ofGeneral Cromwell's: 'All that believe have the realunity, which is most glorious, because inward andspiritual, in the Body and to the Head. For beingunited in forms, every Christian will, for peace'sake, study and do, as far as conscience willpermit. And for brethren, in things of the mind, welook for no compulsion but that of light and reason.'"

"What does my brother mean, Master Antony?"quoth Aunt Dorothy, when she came to thispassage. "And what doth General Cromwell mean?'No compulsion!' and 'light and reason!' Mostdangerous words. An assembly of godly divinesat Westminster to settle everything! That isprecisely what we have been fighting for. Not fordisorder; not for each man to think what is rightin his own judgment, and do what is right in hisown eyes. But for those who believe right to havethe power to instruct, or else to silence, those whobelieve wrong. Light and reason indeed! Thecry of all the heretics from the beginning. Why,reason is the very source of all error. And light isprecisely what we lack, and what the WestminsterAssembly is providing for us; and when they havejust kindled it, and set it up like a city on a hill,does Mr. Cromwell, forsooth, think we are going tolet every tinker and tailor kindle his farthingcandle instead, and lead people into any wilderness hepleases?"

"There was a great light enkindled and set upon a Sorrowful Hill sixteen hundred years ago. Butit has only enlightened the hearts of those whowould look at it. And if the Sun does not put outthese poor farthing candles, Mistress Dorothy, I amafraid we shall find it a hard matter to do so withour fingers."

"That Independents and Presbyterians shouldagree might indeed be easy enough. But Lutheransand Calvinists are quite another question. Inthe next world—well, it is to be hoped. Deathworks miracles. But in this, scarcely. The dearbrother-in-law is one of the wisest of men. But itcannot be expected that the wisest Englishmanshould quite fathom the religious differences ofGermany."

Of toleration towards Papists, Infidels, or Quakers,no one dreamed. Infidelity, all admitted,comes direct from the devil, and, of course, noChristian should tolerate the devil or his works.The Papists had within the memory of our oldermen sent fetters to bind us, and fagots to burn usin the Armada, which the winds of God scatteredfrom our coasts. In France they had massacredour brethren in cold-blood to the number of onehundred thousand in the slaughter which began onSt. Bartholomew's day. They had assassinated ourkindred by tens of thousands in Ireland in our owntimes. And they were binding, and burning, andtorturing, and making galley-slaves of our brethrenstill on the Continent of Europe. Not as hereticswe kept them under, but as rebels. And as tothe Quakers, they were reported to be liable toattacks of objections to clothes very perplexing tosober-minded Christians, and were probably manyof them lunatics. These should not indeed beburned, but they should at all events be clothed, and,if possible, silenced, until they came to their rightmind.

The third letter which Dr. Antony had broughtus was from Job Forster. I went with Dr. Antonyto take it to Rachel. In it Job spoke much ofRoger's courage and goodness, in a way it mademy heart beat quick to hear.

"Master Roger fights like a lion-like man ofJudah," wrote Job, "and commands like one of thechief princes. And at other times he can tend awounded man, friend or foe, or speak good wordsto the dying, most as tender, Rachel, as thee."

Job's letter was by no means doubtful ordesponding. He had the advantage of those in theranks. He saw only the rank and the step immediatelybefore him, and heard not the discussions ofthe commanders but only the word of command."I think," he concluded, "we have come about to1 Sam. xxii. 14. Some time back we were in 1Sam. xxii. 1, in cave Adullam: 'Every one thatwas in debt, and every one that was discontented,gathered themselves unto them,' and a sorry troopthey were. But that is over. The General saithhimself: 'I have a lovely company; honest, soberChristians; you would respect them did you knowthem.' And respect us they do; leastways theenemy. And now David (that is, General Cromwell)is in Keilah. And they inquired of the Lordand the Lord said, 'They will deliver thee up.'ButGod delivered him not. The rest has to come inits season."

Job wrote also of "the young gentleman thechirurgeon." "Of as good a courage as the best,"quoth Job. "For I hold it harder to stand aboutamong the whizzing bullets, succouring or removingthe wounded than to fight. It is always harderto stand fire than to charge. And it is harder tospend days and nights tending poor groaningsuffering men than to suffer yourself. That is, if youhave got a heart. Which that doctor hath. Butevery man hath his calling. And Dr. Antony hathhis. Straight from headquarters, as I deem."

It was curious that what struck me first in thosewords of Job's was his calling Dr. Antony "young." Itset me wondering what his age might be; andas we walked home together I glanced at him tosee. I had always thought of him as my Father'sfriend, and therefore of another generation. Besidesthere was the doctor's cap, and a physician isalways,ex officio, an elder. But when I came toconsider his face, it had certainly nothing of oldage in it. His carriage was erect and easy; hishair, raven-black, had not a streak of gray; hiseyes, dark as they were, had fire enough in them.These researches scarce took me a moment, but hiseyes met mine, and it seemed as if he half guessedwhat I was thinking of, for he said,—

"Not at all," said I, somewhat confused. "Iwas only thinking how it was you were always ourFather's friend instead of ours."

"Mine, of course," I said, feeling myself becominghopelessly entangled, "and every one's besides."

"Is it easier, do you think, Dr. Antony," I said,breaking hurriedly from the subject, "to fight, thanto be a chirurgeon on the battle-field?"

"Easier, probably, to me," he said. "Fightingis in our blood. My grandfather was a soldier, andfought in the French wars of religion. He wasassassinated at the St. Bartholomew with Coligny.My father, then a child, was seized, baptized, andeducated in a Catholic seminary. But he escaped,at the risk of his life, to England. In France wehad enough of wars of religion. I have thought itbetter work to devote myself as far as I may tosuccour the oppressed, and heal such as can behealed of the wounds and sorrows of men. Thereis enough of danger and of warfare in these daysin such a calling to satisfy a soldier's passion, andnot to let the blood stagnate or grow cold."

There was a subdued fire in his eye and a deep sonorousring in his voice, which gave force to his words.

"It was my father's Christian name, which headopted for safety. His name was properlyAntoine la Mothe Duplessis, from an estate our familyhad held for some centuries. But, Mistress Olive,"he said, turning the discourse, as if it led to painfulsubjects, or as if he shrank from continuing on atheme so unusual with him as himself, "I understandyou are accused of upholding witches."

"But even if she had been a witch," I venturedto say, in conclusion, "would it not have beenmore like the Sermon on the Mount to rescue andthen to instruct her, than to drown her? And isnot the Sermon on the Mount the highest law wehave?"

"It is the last edition of the Divine law yetissued, Mistress Olive," he said. "And one greatglory of it is, it seems to me, that it is not only soplain itself as to need no commentary of lawyeror scribe, but if we try to keep it, it has awonderful power of making other things plain as wego on."

"You must not trouble yourself to be ourletter-carrier. Less useful men can be spared on sucherrands. I wonder my brother should have burdenedyou therewith."

"I thank you, Mistress Dorothy," said he; "butit was my free choice to come. And I promise youI will only come when it is no burden."

"Pardon me; but I am old enough to be yourmother. Suffer an aged woman to warn you againstnew-fangled notions. Beware of 'light' and 'reason,'prithee, and such presumptuous pleas. Thelight that is in us is darkness, and our reason iscorrupt. The spiritual armour your fathers fought inMaster Antony, is proof still."

"I believe it, Mistress Dorothy," he replied; "andif in new times and in new dangers I should neednew weapons, believe me, I will only go to myfathers' armoury for them."

I was provoked with myself when he had left,that of all the wise discourse that had been heldsince he came, the things that kept recurring to mymind were what Job had said of Dr. Antony, andhow foolish I had been in the answers I gave himon our way home from Rachel's. He must deemme so unmannerly, I thought. And, besides, somany fitting things now occurred which I mighthave said. Nothing occupies one like a conversationin which one has failed to say what one oughtto have said. It haunts one like a melody of whichyou cannot find the end.

It was evident, moreover, that Aunt Dorothytook the same view of Dr. Antony's age as Job. Itmade Dr. Antony seem like some one quite new,to think of this; new, and yet certainly not strange.

The next Christmas, the army being in winter-quarters,my Father spent with us, which made ita holiday indeed.

In February, 1645, he read us a letter whichDr. Antony wrote to him, narrating what was going onin London. At the beginning there was a considerablepiece which he did not read to us. He said itrelated to family matters, which he could speak ofhereafter, and contained greetings to us. Thus theletter proceeded—it was dated January 21st, 1645:

"Sir Thomas Fairfax is this day appointed by theCommons' House general-in-chief, in lieu of LordEssex; Skipton major-general; while the post oflieutenant-general isleft open. Most men deemthat he who fills it will fillmore than it, as his nameand fame now fill all men's mouths. There havebeen fierce debates, whisperings, conspirings,mysterious midnight meetings at Essex House: the aimof the whole of these conspirings, the bond of allthese gatherings, being to 'remove out of the wayGeneral-Lieutenant Cromwell, whom,' said the ScottishCommissioners, 'ye ken very weel is no friendof ours.' This 'obstacle,' this 'remora' this'INCENDIARY,' as they called him (soaring high into Latinin their vain endeavours to find words lofty enoughto express their abhorrence), had hundreds of graveEnglish and Scottish Presbyterian divines, soldiersand lawyers, been labouring for months to removeout of the way; yet, nevertheless, on the 9th ofDecember, there he stood in the Commons' House, asimmovable an obstacle and 'remora' as ever, andabout to prove himself an 'Incendiary' indeed bykindling a flame which should consume theireloquent Latin accusations and their authority atonce.

"There was a long silence in the House. GeneralCromwell broke it, speaking abruptly, and not inLatin.

"'It is now a time to speak,' he said, 'or for everhold the tongue. The important occasion now isno less than to save a nation out of a bleeding, nay,almost dying condition, which the long continuanceof this war hath already brought it into; so thatwithout a more speedy, vigorous, effectual prosecutionof the war—casting off all lingering proceedingslike those of soldiers of fortune beyond sea tospin out a war—we shall make the kingdom wearyof us, and hate the name of a Parliament.

"'For what do the enemy say? Nay, what domany that were friends at the beginning of theParliament? Even this, that the members of bothHouses have got great places and commands, andthe sword into their hands, and what by interest inParliament, what by power in the army, willperpetually continue themselves in grandeur, and notpermit the war speedily to end, lest their ownpower should determine with it. This that I speak hereto our own faces, is but what others do utter abroadbehind our backs. I am far from reflecting on any.I know the worth of those commanders. Membersof both Houses who are still in power; but if I mayspeak my conscience without reflection on any, I doconceive if the army is not put into another method,and the war more vigorously prosecuted, the peoplecan bear the war no longer, and will enforce you toa dishonourable peace.

"'But this I would recommend to your prudence.Not to insist upon any complaint or oversight ofany commander-in-chief upon any occasion whatsoever,for as I must acknowledge myself guilty ofoversights, so I know they can rarely be avoided inmilitary affairs. Therefore, waiving a strict inquiryinto the issues of these things, let us applyourselves to the remedy, which is most necessary.And I hope we have such true English hearts, andzealous affections towards the general weal of ourmother-country, as no members of either House willscruple todeny themselves and their own privateinterests for the public good, nor account it to bea dishonour done to them, whatever the Parliamentshall resolve upon in this weighty matter.'

"'Whatever be the cause, two summers are passedover, but we are not saved. Our victories (theprice of blood invaluable) so gallantly gotten, and(which is more pity) so graciously bestowed, seemto have been put into a bag with holes; what wewon one time, we lost another; the treasure isexhausted, the country wasted, a summer's victoryhas proved but a winter's story; the game,however, shut up with autumn, was to be played againthe next spring, as if the blood that had been shedwere only to manure the field of war for a moreplentiful crop of contention. Men's hearts havefailed them with the observation of these things.'

"The cause General Cromwell deemed to be themultiplication of commanders. The remedy, thatmembers of both Houses shoulddeny themselves theright to appointthemselves to posts of militarycommand. The 'Self-Denying Ordinance' and the'New Model' of the army were proposed, and soonpassed the House of Commons. The Lords debatedand rejected it; but this day the Commons haveappointed Sir Thomas Fairfax commander-in-chief,superseding Lord Essex. And few doubt but theywill carry it through.

"But meanwhile, during these dark Januarydays, another conflict has ended; on Tower Hill.

"The fallen archbishop, whose name was a terrorfor so many years in every Puritan home in England,there, on this 10th of January, laid down hislife heroically and calmly as a martyr, which hesurely believed himself to be. He read a prayer hehad composed for the occasion. I grieve to say, thescaffold was crowded, not with his friends. He saidhe would have wished an empty scaffold, but if itcould not be so, God's will be done; he was morewilling to go out of the world than any could be tosend him. A helpless, forsaken old man, heavilyladen with bodily infirmities, four years a prisoner,uneasily dragged from trial to trial, I never heardthat his courage failed. I would they had let himdie in quiet. But Sir John Clotworthy, over zealous,as I think, asked him what text was mostcomfortable to a man in his departure. 'Cupio dissolvietesse cum Christo,' said the archbishop. 'That isa good desire,' was the rejoinder; 'but there mustbe a foundation for that desire, an assurance.' 'Noman can express it,' was the calm reply, 'it mustbe found within.' 'Yet it is founded on a word,and that word should be known.' 'It is the knowledgeof Jesus Christ,' said the archbishop, 'and thatalone;' and to finish the discussion, he turned tothe headsman, gave him some money, and said,'Here, honest friend, God forgive thee, and do thyoffice on me in mercy;' and so, after a short prayer,his head was struck off at one blow. The crowddispersed, and the fatal hill was left once moresilent and deserted, with the scaffold and the Towerfacing each other, the weary prison of so many, andthe blood-stained key, which had for so manyunbarred its heavy gates, and also, we may trust,another gate, from inside which our whole earthseems but a prison chamber.

"If we look at the world only as divided intoparties, truly this death of his were worth to thosewho think with him, more than many victories inParliament or in the field. But if we think of theOne Kingdom, surely we may rejoice that one who,as it seems to us, erred much in head and heart, anddid no little hurt, came right at last, and tookrefuge with Him who receives us not as Archbishops,or Presbyterians or Independents, but as repentant,weary, and heavy-laden men and women.

"Some few friends reverently buried him in BarkingChurch to the words of the old burial-service,prohibited by the Parliament a few days before.All honour to them."

"It is a great pity the martyrs should not all beon the right side. It would make it so very mucheasier to know which is the right."

"Martyrs on the wrong side," exclaimed AuntDorothy, indignantly; "you might as well talk oforthodox heretics."

"If obedience is better than sacrifice, thenobedience is the best part of the sacrifice ofmartyrdom; and may we not trust that the Master mayaccept the act of obedience even of some whomisread the word of command?"

On the 29th of January, commissioners of theParliament and of the king met at Uxbridge tonegotiate for peace. But they did not get on at all.Dr. Stewart syllogistically defended the divine rightof Episcopacy, and Dr. Henderson the divine rightof the Presbyterial government. My LordHertford and my Lord Pembroke would have passedthis by, to proceed to the particular points to besettled; but the divines declined to be hurried,insisting on disputing syllogistically "as becamescholars." So, after twenty days, Dr. Stewart andDr. Henderson, being each confirmed in theirconviction of his own orthodoxy, the commissionersseparated with no further result.

One evening, indeed, it is said, the king hadconsented to honourable terms; but in the night aletter came from Montrose announcing Royalistvictories, and in the morning His Majesty retracted theconcessions of the evening.

Meanwhile the two armies continued fighting;not in two large bodies, but in scattered skirmishes,sieges, surprises, all over the country, makingwell-nigh every quiet home in England a sharer in themisery and tumult of the war.

The moral difference between the forces of theParliament and the king became, it was said, moreobvious. It could scarce be otherwise. War mustmake men firmer in virtues or more desperate insin. Men must get less and less human with yearsof plundering, and indulgence in every selfish sinfulpleasure. No good woman durst venture near theRoyalist army, my Father said, and vice andprofaneness were scarcely punished; whereas in theParliament camp, as in a well-ordered city, passagewas safe, and traffic free. It was the armies of thegreat Gustavus and that of Wallenstein over again.I think it would be blasphemy to deem suchdifferences can have no weight in a world where Godis King.

I wonder if it can be that, after all, it leads tomore good to fight out the great battles of rightand wrong in this way, than syllogistically, inDr. Stewart and Dr. Henderson's way. The logicalbattles making good men fierce, and not hurtingthe bad at all; the battles for life and deathmaking good men nobler, at all events, even if theymake the bad men worse. Making good men betterseems the end of so many things that Godpermits or orders in this world. And as to makingbad men worse, it seems as if that could not behelped, because everything does that until theychange the direction they are going in, which greattroubles and dangers sometimes startle them to do.If this be so, the pain and misery and death wouldcease to be so perplexing. Aunt Dorothy used tosay, a Church without a rod in her hand is a Churchwithout sinews. But a Church with a rod seemssometimes as blind and severe in using it as theworld. For which reason, I suppose, the bestperiods of Church history seem often to be those inwhich the world holds the rod instead of the Church.And a war may sometimes be as effectual an instrumentof godly discipline as a synod.

"June 14th, 1645,Davenant Hall, Three o'clock inthe morning.—We came home yesterday, and Igrudge to sleep away any of these first hours in theold house. It is like travelling into some marvellousforeign country, to rise at an unwonted hourin the morning. The sky looks so much higherbefore the roof of daylight has quite spread over it.For after all, daylight is a roof shutting us in to ourown green sunny home of earth. And that is partlywhat makes the night so awful. We stand rooflessat night, open to all the other worlds, with no wallsor bounds on any side. And at dawn something ofthe boundlessness and awfulness are still left. Witha majestical slow pomp the morning sweeps theveil of sunlight over star after star, falling in grandsolemn folds of purple and crimson as it touches theedge of our world, until the great spaces of theupper worlds are all shut out, and we are shut inwith our own kindly sun, and our own many-colouredfleeting clouds, and our own green earth.

"Then the other aspect of the dawn begins.Her first steps and movements are all grand andsilent. But when the awful infinity beyond is shutout, and we are left alone, face to face with her, shechanges altogether.

"The stars pass away in silence. But the dayawakes with all kinds of joyful sounds. The cloudsare transformed from solemn purple banners insome great martial or sacred procession to royal orbridal draperies. They garland the earth withroses, they strew pearls and diamonds; they spreadthe path of the new sun with cloth of gold. Thewhole world, earth, and sky, seems to blossom intocolour, like a flower from its sheath. Every leaf ofthe limes outside my window, every spike of thehorse-chestnuts seems to awake with a flutter ofjoy.

"It seems as if infinity came back to us in a newway. For the infinite spaces of night, we have theinfinite numbers of day. Instead of the heavymasses of foliage waving an hour or two dimlysince against the sky, there is a countless multitudeof leaves fluttering in and out of the sunlight, acountless multitude of birds singing, chirping,twittering, among the branches, a countless throng ofinsects hovering, wheeling, darting in and outamong the leaves; there are the infinite varietiesof colour on every blade of grass, on every blossom,on every insect's wing.

"It is a wonderful joy to be here again. Everycreature seems to welcome me. I seem to long tospeak to every one of them, and just add a littledrop of happiness to the happiness of them all. Iwant to take all of them, in some way, like littlechildren, to my heart and kiss them.

"Olive said that feeling was really the longingto be folded to the Heart which is at the heart ofall; but nearer us than any other creature.

"Leaning out of my window, looking down fromthe slopes of the Wolds, as we do across the longspace of fens which stretches before us like a sea, Isee the gables of Netherby.

"Fathers and brothers all at the war. In sight,yet how sadly out of reach! This terrible war thatseems as if it would never end. Things have notbeen going on quite so prosperously with us lately;although many strong places in the North are stillloyal; and all the West is ours, and much of Wales.A new vigour seems to have come into the rebelcouncils. They say the soul of them all is thisOliver Cromwell, that he and his friends havebrought in some new regulation, called by some oftheir unpleasant Parliament names. They calleverything a covenant or an ordinance, as if it wereall out of the Bible. They call this the Self-DenyingOrdinance. The meaning of it seems to bethat they are all to deny themselves to giveMr. Cromwell the real command. At least, Harrythinks so. And he looks gloomily on our affairs.He was at home before we came, to make the placeready for us. And he only left yesterday morningto rejoin the king's army, which is in Leicestershire.Not so very far off.

"A few days since the troops stormed Leicester,and sacked it. Harry would not tell us much aboutit. He said it was too much after the fashion ofthose dreadful German wars of religion, whichPrince Rupert has taught our men to imitate toowell.

"Poor wretched city! We could not hear anythingof that. Groans and even helpless cries forpity do not reach far. At least, not on earth. Isuppose nothing reaches heaven sooner.

"I wish that thought had not come into my headabout hearing the roar of a battle if there were one.Since it came, I cannot help listening, through allthe sweet cheerful country-sounds, the twitteringsof the swallows under the eaves, the soft cadencesof the thrushes, the stirring of the grasses, forsomething in the distance!

"If we did hear anything, it would be very, veryfar off, fainter than the fluttering of the leaves: likethe moan of distant thunder.

"In summer days there are often mysterious, far-offsounds one cannot account for. And now I cando nothing but listen for it.

"For almost the last thing Harry said when hewent away was, that there would be a battle, probably,before long, and if a battle, probably a greatbattle.

"He took leave of us gayly, my Mother and me.But ten minutes afterwards, he galloped back tothe place in the outer field where I was standinglooking after him (my Mother having gone to bealone, as she always does when Harry leaves us).His face had lost all the gaiety, and he said,—

"'Lettice, if things were not to prosper with theking, and the rebels were to attack this house, Ithink it would be better not attempt to stand asiege. The house extends too far to be defended,except with a larger garrison than you could muster.And the country is against us. If it came to thevery worst, Mr. Drayton is a generous enemy and agentleman, and would give you safe harbour for atime. If all on their side or ours had been like theDraytons, there need have been no war. You maytell them that I said so, if you like, if it ever comesto that.'

"'Lettice, we must think of all possibilities.You are young, and my Mother is used to lean onothers.'

"'Yes,' he said, hurriedly; 'too much, perhaps.But trust the Draytons, if necessary, Lettice. Theywill never do anything unjust or ungenerous. Ifyou ask their advice, they will advise you for yourgood, though it cut their own throats or broke theirown hearts.'

"'It is never any good to try to say out a farewell,Lettice. If one had years to say it in, therewould always be something left unsaid. Partingsare always sudden, whether we are snatched fromeach other as if by pirates in the dead of night, orwatch the lessening sail till it becomes a speck inthe horizon. The last step is always a plunge intoa gulf. But, Lettice,' he added, lowering his voice,'death itself is not really a gulf, only to those onthis edge of it. Do not tell my Mother I came back.If she asks you anything about it, tell her I neverwent away with a lighter heart. For I see less andless what the end will be, or what to wish for, andI am content more and more to make the day'smarch, and leave the conduct of the campaign toGod.'

"And he rode off, looking like a prince, and Iwatched him till he disappeared behind the trees.He looked back once again and waved his plumedhat to me, and then galloped out of sight in a moment.

"I crept back by a side-door near the stable, thatmy Mother might not see me; and Cæsar, Harry'sdog, made a dismal whining, and crouched andfawned on me, so that it went to my heart not to beable to grant him what he asked for so plainly inhis poor dumb way, and set him free to follow Harry.

"June 14,Ten o'clock at night.—Some men whocame from the North this evening, say there hasbeen fighting towards the North-west, somewhereon the borders of Northamptonshire and LeicestershireThe roar of the guns began early in theday, and then there was sharp interrupted firing,which went on till the afternoon, when it seemedgradually to cease.

"All day it has been going on. All this quietsummer day. My Father there, perhaps, and Harrycertainly. And nothing to be heard until to-morrow.

"My Mother will not seek rest to-night. I seethe lamp in her oratory-window. And far off acrossthe fields, another light in the gable of old Netherby,where Olive Drayton used to sleep. It is somecomfort to think we are watching together. Oliveis so good. And she will be sure to remember us.

"June 20.—We heard before the morrow. Thenext morning, when the dawn began to break again,a horseman galloped hastily up to the door. I wasin my mother's room; we were both dressed. Wehad neither of us slept. I looked out. It wasRoger Drayton. My Mother sat up on the bed, whenI had persuaded her to rest.

"'Perhaps it is poor Margery,' I said. ForMargery had come to stay with us since we returned.It comforted us to keep together, all of us who hadkindred at the field.

"She knelt down one moment, and drew me downbeside her, by the bedside, heart against heart, andmurmured,—

"'Was the victory for the king or not?' she asked;unable to utter the question uppermost on herheart and mine.

"'There was hard fighting on both sides' hereplied. 'The king and Prince Rupert have gonewestward towards Wales.'

"'Then the king has lost,' she said. 'But it wasnot to tell us this you came. Who is hurt?'

"'It is Harry!' she exclaimed. 'You have cometo summon us to him. Is the wound severe? Isthere hope? Can we go to him at once?'

"There was a pause, and a dreadful irresponsivesilence between each of her questions. Heanswered only the last,—

"At once the whole depth of her sorrow openedbeneath her. Not an instant too soon. For thewords had scarcely left Roger's lips when the heavyregular tramp of men bearing a burden echoedthrough the silence of the morning outside, andpaused at the porch.

"For an instant I feared she had not yet graspedRoger's meaning. For this awful burden they werebearing wasnot Harry, I knew. No welcomeswould ever greet him more. But I had notfathomed her sorrow nor her strength.

"She met the bearers at the door. They stoodwith uncovered heads, having laid down what theybore on the stone seat of the porch. They weremostly old servants of the family.

"'My friends, I thank you,' she said. 'You havedone all you could. But not there. On the placeof honour. He was worthy.'

"And she motioned them to the dais at the headof the Hall, where the heads of our house are wontto receive the homage of their retainers.

"Silently they bore him there, and laid theirsacred burden gently down. She thanked them againfor their good service. And then as silently theywithdrew. I saw many a rough hand lifted tobrush away the tears. But she did not weep. Shestood motionless, with clasped hands, beside thebier, and murmured to herself again and again, in alow voice,—

"Then, turning with her own sweet, never-forgottencourtesy to Roger, she held out her hand tohim again, and said,—

"He held her hand, and said rapidly, as if uncertainof the firmness of his own voice,—

"'I was near him at the last, and he made mepromise to see you, or I could not have dared tocome.'

"'He made me promise to tell you he had littlepain and no fear,' Roger said, in a low voice. 'Andhe gave me this for you, and said, "Tell my motherthese words of hers have often helped me to believe,through all these evil days, that God is living andcommanding still. But, more than all words, tellher my faith in God has been kept unquenched bythe thought ofherself."'

"She took the packet from him. It was a littlebook, with Scriptures and prayers written in it byher own hand, given to Harry when he was a boy.On the crimson silk cover she had embroidered forit, was one stain of a deeper crimson. As sheopened it, a little well-worn leaf dropped out, with achild's prayer on it she had written for him whenfirst he went to school.

"When she saw it, the thought of the hero dyingon the battle-field for the good cause vanished, andin its place came the memory of the little handsclasped on her knees in prayer.

"And withdrawing her hand from Roger, a suddenquiver passed through all her frame, and throwingher arms around me, she sobbed,—

"When I looked up again Roger was at the door.It seemed to me, from the glance he gave he waswaiting to say something more. And I resolved,cost what it might, to hear it. We led my Motherinto the nearest chamber, and then leaving her withthe maidens, I went back to the Hall.

"He said, 'The Draytons and the Davenantsmight have to combat one another in these eviltimes, but that we should never distrust each other,and that he never had distrusted one of us.'

"'The battle swept on; I had to mount again,'he said, 'and I could not leave my men.'

"'You saw him no more,' I said. 'You couldnot even stay to watch his last breath!'

"The moment I had uttered them I felt there wassomething like reproach in my words, and I wouldhave recalled them if I could.

"'I saw him no more until the fighting was over,'he said. 'Then I came back and found him; andwe brought him home. It was all we could do,' headded; 'and it was little indeed.'

"'I am sure you did all you could, Roger,' I said;for I feared I had wounded him. 'I should alwaysbe sure you would do all you could for any of us.'

"And there was a tremor and a depth of pleasedsurprise in his tones that startled me, and I couldnot look up.

"'No one can comfort her, Roger,' I said; andthe tears I had been trying to put back choked myvoice, 'Harry was everything to her. He was everythingto us all. No one will ever comfort her more.'

"'You will comfort her, Lettice,' he said, withthat quiet commanding way he has sometimes.'God gives it you to do; and He will give you todo it.'

"And as he ceased speaking, and I went back tomy Mother, I felt as if there were indeed a strengththrough which I could do anything that had to bedone.

"July 1.—Sir Launcelot Trevor has come withtidings of my Father and my brothers.

"They are in the West, save the two younger,who went across the Borders after the battle ofMarston Moor, and have joined Montrose in theScottish Highlands, deeming that the king's causewill best rally there.

"The good cause is low; lower than ever before.Soon after that fatal day at Naseby the town ofBridgewater surrendered to General Fairfax.

"Prince Rupert (with such courage as one mightexpect, I think, from a chief of plunderers) thereoncounselled the king to make peace. But His Majesty,never so majestic as in adversity, said, 'Thatalthough, as a soldier and a statesman, he saw noprospect but of ruin, yet, as a Christian, he knewGod would never forsake his cause, and suffer rebelsto prosper; that he knew his obligations to be, bothin conscience and honour, neither to abandon God'scause, to injure his successors, or forsake his friends.Nevertheless, for himself (he said) he looked fornothing but to die with honour and a goodconscience; and to his friends he had little prospect tooffer, but to die in a good cause, or, what was worse,to live as miserable in maintaining it as the violenceof insulting rebels could make them.'

"What promises, or royal orders, could bindmen, with any soul in them, to their sovereign aswords like these? Least of all those who, like us,are bound to the cause by having given up our bestfor it. Nothing, my Mother says, makes a thingso precious to us as what we suffer for it. Indeed,nothing now seems able to kindle her to anythinglike life, save aught associated with that sacredcause for which Harry died.

"Sir Launcelot saith, moreover, that the rebelshave been base enough to lay bare to the eyes of thecommon people of London the private letters fromHis Majesty to the queen, found in his cabinet onthe field at Naseby. And that these letters containthings which have even lost the king some old loyalfriends. Sorry friendship, indeed, or loyalty, to bemoved by discoveries, made only through treacheryand breach of confidence, which no gentleman wouldpractice to save his life.

"But there is one thing Sir Launcelot hinted tome which I dare not breathe to my Mother. Hesaid there was reason enough why Roger was nearHarry when he fell; for it was by the hand of oneof the Ironsides, beyond doubt, that he died.

"But never by Roger's hand! Or, if possiblysuch a curse could have been suffered to fall on onelike Roger, it must have been unknown to him. Ofthis I am as sure as of my life.

"Sir Launcelot said that Roger's hand was wontto be a little too ready to be raised. Ungenerousof him to say it, and yet too true. Slowly roused;but once roused, blind to all results.

"How bitter his vain repentance would be if thisterrible thing were possible, and he once came toknow it.

"But even if it were possible, and he never knewit, but we knew it, what a gulf from henceforth forever between us and him!

"I cannot breathe this to my Mother. And yet,if Sir Launcelot's fears could have any ground, itwould seem a treachery, if ever Roger came to usagain to let her touch in welcome the hand thatdealt that blow!

"I know not what to do. It is the first perplexityI ever knew in which I could not fly to her foraid and counsel.

"Can it be possible that our Lord thought of Hisdisciples being perplexed and bewildered at all, as Iam, when, just before He went away, He calledthem 'little children?' Can it be possible that Hemeant, Come to me, as little children to theirmother; when you want wisdom, come to Me!"

CHAPTER XI.

The first trustworthy tidings we had ofthe battle of Naseby were from Dr. Antony.I saw him coming hastily acrossthe fields from the direction of Davenant Hall.

It was very early in the morning. The villagehad been stirring through the previous afternoonwith uneasy rumours, and I had not slept. I waswatching the light in the window of Lady Lucy'soratory, and thinking how she and Lettice hadwatched there together that terrible night so longago, saying collects for Roger, and how Lettice hadhastened to us in the morning, on her white palfreywith the welcome tidings that Sir Launcelot wouldrecover. And now how far we were from eachother! What a sea between us! Two moats, (themoonlight was shining on ours just below me,)drawbridges, and fortifications. But deeper andstronger than all the moats and walls in the worldlay between us the memories of those bitter yearsof war, and ever-widening misconception anddivision. Yet I felt sure Lettice loved us still.

And as I was thus looking and thinking, I sawDr. Antony coming hastily down the road from thestile which led across the fields to the Hall, where Ihad parted from Harry Davenant that night whenhe brought the tidings of Lord Strafford's execution,and would not come in.

My first impulse was to rush down the stairs andunbar the door. But many things held me back. Apresentiment that the news he brought might besuch as there was no need to fore-date by hurryingto meet it; an uncomfortable recollection of JobForster's letter, and of that conversation in which Ihad said nothing right.

I went, therefore, to summon Aunt Dorothy ashead of the household. She had so many preparationsto make, that Dr. Antony's hand was on thegreat house-bell long before she was ready. Nothingso slow she said as hurry, besides its being a proofof the impatience of the flesh. She would evenfold up scrupulously the clothes she took off,faithful to her maxim, that we should always leaveeverything as if we might never return to it.

I went to see if Aunt Gretel was more capable ofbeing hastened. She, dear soul, was sympathizing,excited, and agitated beyond my utmost desires, forshe could lay her hands on nothing she wanted. Sothat I had to return to Aunt Dorothy, who, by thattime, was ready; and feeling how cold and tremblingmy hand was as she took it to lead medownstairs, she laid her other on it with an unwonteddemonstration of tenderness, and said,—

"Child, we can neither hasten the Lord's stepsnor make them linger. But He will do right." Therewas strength in her words, but almost asmuch to me in the tones, which were tremulous,and in the cold touch of her hand, which showedthat the blood at her heart stood as still as mine.

My Father was wounded, not dangerously, onlyso as to render him incapable of further service inthe field, at least at present. His right arm wasbroken. Roger was coming home with him.

I wondered that Dr. Antony seemed so heavy atheart, to bring tidings which made my heart leapwith thankfulness. What could be better than thatRoger was unhurt, and that my Father had receiveda slight wound just sufficient to keep him at homewith us?

"Dr. Antony!" I said, "there is sorrow for theDavenants!" And then he told us how HarryDavenant had fallen.

We had little time for bewailing him, for thehousehold had to be roused, and refreshment and abed prepared for my Father.

I had scarce ever seen Roger so cast down as hewas about Harry Davenant's death. One of thenoblest gentlemen the king had on his side, hethought so pure, and true, and brave. If all hadbeen like him there had been no war, and no needfor it. "And," said Roger, "I always looked for theday to come when Harry Davenant would understandus. For we were fighting for the same thing,though on opposite sides—for England and her oldlaws and liberties; for a righteous kingdom. AndI always thought one day he would see where itcould be found, and where it couldnot."

Roger could not stay with us long. But beforehe went, Harry Davenant was buried, very quietlyin the old vault of the Davenants in Netherbychurch.

It was at night, for the liturgy had been abolishedsix months before, and was unlawful, and the Vicarrisked something in suffering it to be read even byLady Lucy's chaplain, as it was. And we honouredhim and Placidia for the venture. Roger had askedto be one of the bearers. Aunt Gretel, RachelForster, and I, waited for them in the church-porch.Slowly through the silent summer-night came theheavy tramp of the bearers, until they paused andlaid their burden down under the old Lych Gate.Then, while they came up the churchyard, wecrept quietly back into the church, dark in all partsexcept where the funeral torches lit up a little spacearound the open vault, and threw strange flickeringshadows on the recumbent forms of the dead ofHarry Davenant's race, knight and dame, priestand crusader. It made them look as if they moved,to meet him; for none of the living men of hishouse were there, although of all his race none hadfallen more bravely.

Behind the bier followed four women closely veiled.The first, by the height and movement, I knewwas his Mother, and at her side, as the sacred wordswere read, knelt Lettice. I think in times ofoverwhelming joy or sorrow, when no words couldfathom the depths of the heart, when almost everyhuman voice would fall outside it altogether, or jarrudely if it reached within, there is a wonderfulcomfort in the calm of those ancient immutableliturgies. They are a channel worn deep by the joysand sorrows of ages. Their changelessness linksthem to eternity, and seems thus to make room forthe sorrow which overflows the narrow measures ofthought and time.

"Delivered from the burden of the flesh," "arein joy and liberty," "not to be sorry as men withouthope for them that sleep in Him, that when weshall depart this life, we may rest on Him as ourhope is, this our brother doth." How tranquillythe simple words sank into the very depths of theheart.

All the more precious and sacred, doubtless, forthe tender sanctity which ever invests a proscribedreligion.

Not that our Puritan faith is without its liturgies.Older than England, and older than Christendom,fused in the burning heart of the king of old, warrior,patriot, exile, conqueror, and penitent. But itis a perilous thing to make services like those of theChurch of England, dear enough already to everyfaithful heart who has used them from infancy,dearer still by making them dangerous. I neverknew how I loved them till we lost them.

And as that night the sacred, simple, time-honouredwords fell like heavenly music among theshadows of the dim old church, I felt as if thedecree which made them unlawful, and the grave ofthe brother slain at Naseby, were slowly mining agulf which could never be crossed between theDraytons and the Davenants.

Alas, alas for truth! or at least for us who fainwould ever recognise and be loyal to her, when shechanges raiment with error, when the crown ofthorns is transferred to the brows of her enemies,and the martyrs are on the wrong side. But suchtransformations have not hitherto lasted long, andmeantime the crown of thorns may imprint itslessons even on those who wear it by mistake.

There was no sound of loud weeping. But when,for the last time, before the coffin was lowered outof sight, Lady Lucy knelt once more to embrace it,she did not rise until Lettice went gently to lift herthence; when it was found that she had fainted,and had to be borne away. But for this, Letticewould probably never have known we were there.I went at Roger's bidding to see if I could renderany assistance. And then for a moment Letticedrew aside her veil, and with a suppressed sobclasped my hands in hers, and murmured,—

"Thank God, Olive. I knew you would all feelwith us. Pray for her and for me, Olive; we haveno one like him left."

Then she kissed me once, and hastened on afterthe rest; as they silently went back through thefields, bearing instead of the corpse of the son thealmost lifeless form of the mother.

The day after the funeral Roger left us to go backto the army. I told him what Lettice had said.And he seemed more hopeful than he had been fora long time about her not misunderstanding orforgetting us.

"We must never distrust her again, Olive," hesaid. "She has trusted us all through."

It was strange that he should thus admonish me,for it was only Roger who ever had distrusted hercaring still for us. But such little oblivions are thecommon lot of sisters situated as I was. I was fartoo satisfied with his conclusion to dispute as to theway he reached it.

Sir Launcelot Trevor came and stayed there somedays at the beginning of July; and again I wastormented with fears that he had been poisoning theirhearts with some evil reports of us. And as I satwatching by my Father's bed-side, many a time Irejoiced that Roger was away, so that he could notshare my anxieties.

It so happened that most of the nursing fell onme, to my great thankfulness. Aunt Dorothy'ssphere was governing every one outside, and AuntGretel's more especially preparing food and coolingdrinks. Dr. Antony was pleased to say there wassomething in my step which fitted a sick-room.Quiet and quick, and not hasty. And in my voice,he fancied, too; cheerful, he said, as a bird singing,yet soft and low.

Be that as it might, my Father naturally likedbest to have me about him; me and Rachel Forster,in whose presence he found that repose sheseemed to breathe on every one. As if she hadwings invisible, which enfolded a warm, quiet spacearound her, like a hen brooding over her chickens.Rachel Forster and Lady Lucy, of all the womenI ever knew, had most of this. And my Fatherfelt it.

One day Rachel had a letter from Job, written afew days after the battle of Naseby.

"We began marching at three o'clock in themorning of the 14th of June," he wrote. "The daybefore we, the Ironsides, had come with GeneralCromwell from the eastern counties to our army.They had gathered after him like Abi-Ezer afterGideon. The horse already there gave a mightyshout for joy of his coming to them. By five wewere at Naseby, and saw the heads of the enemycoming over the hill. Such a thing as they call ahill in these parts. A broad up and down moor.We fought it out in a fallow field, a mile broad,near the top, from early morning till afternoon. Itbegan somewhat like the day at Marston Moor.They came on first up the hill. Prince Rupert andthe plunderers were on our left, charging swift andsteady, crying out: 'For God and Queen Mary.' 'Godour strength,' cried we. They broke our left,though this we did not know till afterwards. Ourright, that is we, General Cromwell's horse, fell ontheir left and drove them back, flying down the hillthrough the furze-bushes and rabbit-warrens. Themain body, horse and foot, fought hard, breakingand gathering again, like the sea at Lizard at turnof tide. This raging back and forward lasted tillPrince Rupert's horse and ours came back from thechase.

"The difference between keeping the Ten Commandmentsand breaking them tells in the long run.Plundering, firing villages, and slaughteringinnocents, shrinks up the courage of men after a time.Prince Rupert's men could charge to the end likedevils, but they could not rally like ours. Neitherthe prince's nor the king's word can bind their mentogether again to stand a second shock, as Oliver'sword can rally the Ironsides. This differenceturned the day. The difference between keeping theTen Commandments (as far as mortal men can) andbreaking them. The king rode about fearless as alion to the last. 'One charge more and we recoverthe day,' quoth he. But there was no power in hisword to rally them, and the sun was still high whenhe and they fled headlong into Leicester, and weafter them.

"But the Ten Commandments fought againstthem there too. 'The stars in their courses foughtagainst Sisera.'" There was no night's rest for theking in the houses he had seen rifled and dishonouredbut a few days before, and never lifted up hisvoice to hinder it. And on and on he had to fly,to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Wales, and who knowswhere? The plunder of Leicester lay strewn aboutthe fallow field at Naseby, where we camped thatnight, with six hundred of the plunderers dead.Yet God forbid I slander the dead. They foughtlike true men. And brave, young Master HarryDavenant was among them. Belike the true menfell; and the plunderers fled off safe, as such vermindo. Until the Lord and the Ten Commandmentstake them in hand and bring them to account,whether in the body or out of the body.

"A hundred Irish Papist women were found hangingabout the battle-field, armed with long knives,and speaking no Christian tongue. Poor benightedsavages! Very strange to think such havehusbands, and children, and hearts, and souls. Yetbelike so had the Canaanites. These things aredark to me. I have wrestled sore there about, butcan get no light on them.

"Two or three days after the battle a younggentleman, a preacher, aged some thirty years, cameamongst the army. His name was Richard Baxter,a puny feeble body, marked with small-pox, andbowed and worn at thirty like an old man. Yethad the puny body good quality of courage in it.Courage of the soul, burning out of his dark eyes.Courage, surely, he had of his kind. For he cameamongst our men, flushed and strong from thevictorious fight, and exhorted us as if we had been apack of school-boys. Called us—the Ironsides, andWhalley's and Rue's regiments of horse—'hot-headed,self-conceited sectaries,' Anabaptists, Antinomians,and what not—us who had been fightingthe Lord's battles for him and the like of him thesetwo years! Took our camp jokes ill, about 'Scotchdryvines,' 'Dissembling men at Westminster,' and'priestbyters.' Called us profane; us who hadpaid twelve-pence fine for one careless oath eversince we came together.

"Argued with us, dividing his discourse into asmany heads as Leviathan, and using words fromevery heathen tongue under the sun. If we hadthe best of it, called us levellers and fire-brands. Ifwe were silent under his flood of talk, thought wewere beaten, as if to have the best in talk were towin the day. As if an honest Englishman was tochange his mind, because he could not, all in amoment, see his way out of Mr. Baxter's Presbyterialpuzzles. Scarcely grateful, I think, seeing our menhad once asked him to be their chaplain. Some ofus reminded him of it, and he said he was sorry hehad refused, or we should not have come to whatwe are. And he rebuked us sore, and called us outof our names in a gentlemanly way, in Latin andGreek, as if we had been plunderers and malignants;us of General Cromwell's own regiment. Of hiscourage there can after this, I think, be no doubt.Nor forsooth of our patience. And he hath goneback to Coventry and spoken slanders of the 'sadstate' of the army!

"Sad state of the army indeed, where everymorsel we put in our mouths is paid for, throughwhich every modest wench, if she were as fair asSarah, can walk, if she had need, as safe as past herfather's door. An army which had just won Naseby,by the strength of the Lord and the TenCommandments—where not an oath is heard—wherepsalms and prayers rise night and morning as fromthe old Temple—and where a young gentleman likeMr. Richard Baxter, could come and go, and callthe soldiers what ill names he chose, without hurt.For a godly young gentleman we all hold him tobe, and a scholar, and honour him in our souls assuch, and for the chastening hand of the Lord onthe poor suffering, puny, brave body of him,although in some ways he and the likes of him costme more wrestlings than even the Irish Papistwomen with their knives."

Wherever General Cromwell was throughout thatsummer, there continued to be a series of successes.Job's letters and Roger's were records of castlesstormed or surrendered, sieges raised and troopsdispersed, in Devonshire from Salisbury to BoveyTracey.

On the 4th of August, Roger wrote of thedispersing of the poor mistaken Clubmen; a new forceof peasants who had gathered to the number of twothousand on Hambledon Hill, in Surrey. Blind, asmy Father says peasant armies mostly are. AuntGretel turned pale when she heard of them, andtalked of dreadful peasant wars in Dr. Luther's timein Saxony; Dr. Luther dearly loving and fighting, inhis way, for the peasants, but not being able to makethem understand him, like Oliver Cromwell now.

These poor fellows had gathered like brave menin the West to defend their homes from LordGoring's band—"the child-eaters" as some called them,the most lawless and merciless among the Cavaliertroops, surpassing even Prince Rupert's, whom oneof their own called afterwards, "terrible in plunder,and resolute in running away."

"If ye offer to plunder or take our cattle,
Be you assured we'll give you battle,"

was the clubmen's motto. A good one enough.But in time they became hopelessly involved inpolitical plots, of which they understood nothing,demanded to garrison the coast-towns, picked outand killed peaceable Posts, fired on messengers ofpeace sent by General Cromwell, who had muchpity for them, and finally had to be fallen upon andbeaten from the field. "I believe," the General wroteto Sir Thomas Fairfax, "not twelve of them werekilled, but very many were cut, and three hundredtaken—poor silly creatures, whom if you please tolet me send home, they promise to be very dutifulfor time to come, and will be hanged before theycome out again." So men and leaders were taken,and the army dispersed, and came not out again;and the land all around had quiet.

The king's cabinet at Naseby, with all the falseand traitorous letters found therein in hishandwriting, did more to undermine his power than ahundred battles. For in it was shown how, whilesolemnly promising to make no treaties withPapists, and speaking words of peace at Uxbridge,he was negotiating for six thousand Papist soldiersfrom Ireland, and for more than ten thousand fromacross the seas; that he had only agreed to call theParliament Parliament "in the treating with them,in the sense that it was not the same to call themso, and to acknowledge them so to be." He spoke,moreover, of the gentlemen who gathered aroundhim loyally at Oxford, as "the mongrelParliament." So that many of his old friends weresorely aggrieved, and many neutrals began to see that,call men by what titles you will, there can be noloyalty where there is no truth.

In the North affairs went not so prosperously,though there, too, reckless ravaging wrought itsown terrible cure in time. For six weeks Montrosewith his Irish, and Highlanders, and some Englishadventurers, laid Argyleshire waste, killing everyman who could bear arms, plundering and burningevery cottage. It was not like the war in England,save where Prince Rupert and Lord Goring broughtthe savage customs of foreign warfare in on us. Itwas a war of clans, bent on extirpating each otherlike so many wild beasts, and of mountain-robbersset on carrying away as much spoil as theycould from the Lowland cities, and on inflicting asmuch misery as they could by the way to inspire aprofitable terror for the future. Perth was sackedby them, and Aberdeen, and Dundee.

At Kilsyth, near Stirling, Montrose and his menkilled ten times as many of a Covenanted army,against which they fought, as fell of the Cavaliersat Naseby. Six hundred lay slain at Naseby; atKilsyth, six thousand.

And the king, meanwhile, speaking of this robberchief as the great restorer of his kingdom andsupport of his throne, with never an entreaty to sparehis countrymen and subjects.

Can any wonder that the sheep he commissionedso many hirelings to fleece, robbers to plunder, andwolves to slay, would not follow him?

In person, indeed, throughout that summer of1645, His Majesty was pursuing a kind of warfaretoo similar to that of Wallenstein or Montrose. Itwas in the August of this year, scarce two monthsafter the victory of Naseby, that the war surgedup nearer us at Netherby, than at any other time.

The king had fled from Naseby to RaglandCastle, the seat of the Marquis of Worcester (aningenious gentleman who spent his living in seekingout many inventions). There he held his courtfor many weeks; entertained with princely statein the halls of the grand old castle, and huntingdeer gaily through the forests on the banks ofthe Wye, as if his subjects were not themselvesin his quarrel hunting each other to death in everycorner of his kingdom.

Whilst there tidings came to him of the successesof Montrose, and he endeavored to go northwardto join him in Scotland. From Doncaster,however, he fell back on Newark, turned from hispurpose by the Covenanted army of Sir DavidLeslie, which threatened him from the North. Andthen he turned his steps to us, to the Fens and theAssociated Counties, which General Cromwell'scare, and their own fidelity to the Parliament, hadkept hitherto high and dry out of reach of the war,save for some few stray foraging parties. Duringthis August 1645 we learned, however, at HisMajesty's hands, the meaning of civil war. Theeastern counties lay exposed to attack, having senttheir tried men westward with Cromwell and Fairfax;so that we had nothing but our own morerecent foot-levies to defend us.

The king dashed from Stamford throughHuntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire, ravaging thewhole country as he passed, and detaching flyingsquadrons to plunder Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire,as far as St. Albans. Several times he threatenedCambridge.

On the 24th of August, he took Huntingdon byassault, and four days afterwards, by the 28th, wassafe again within the lines of Oxford, with largestore of booty seized from the very cradle andstronghold of the Parliamentary army.

No doubt the Cavaliers had fine triumphing andmerry-making over the spoils at Oxford. But to us,around whom lay the empty granaries and rooflesshomesteads, and the wrecked and burned villagesfrom which these spoils came, the lesson was notone of submission or of terror, but of resistancemore resolute than ever. Prince Rupert had beenteaching this lesson for three years in every cornerof the realm. His Majesty taught it us in person.A lesson of resistance not desperate but hopeful;for we could not but deem that a king who wouldindiscriminately ravage whole counties of hiskingdom, must look on it as an alien territory alreadylost to his crown.

Many sins, no doubt, may be laid to the chargeof the Parliament and its army. But of two sinsterribly common in civil strife they were never guilty;indiscriminate plunder and secret assassination.The ruins and desecrations the Commonwealth soldierswrought in churches and cathedrals, will telltheir tale against us to many a generation to come.The ruins the Royalist troopers wrought were inpoor men's homes long since repaired. Thedesecrations they wrought were also in homes, ruinsand desecrations of temples not made with hands,and never to be repaired, but recorded on sacredinviolable tables, more durable than any stone,though not to be read on earth, at least not yet.

The village of Netherby lay just beyond the edgeof the royal devastations. But the cattle all aroundus were seized, with all the corn that was reaped.And at night the sky was all aglow with the flamesof burning cottages, and corn and hay-stacks. Ourown barns were untouched, but my Father gaveorders at once to begin husbanding our stores bylimiting our daily food, looking on what was sparedto us as the granary of the whole destituteneighbourhood through the coming winter, and as theseed-store for the following spring. Our sheds andout-houses, meantime, were fitted up for those whohad been driven from their homes. Every cottagein Netherby gave shelter to some homelessneighbour. Rachel Forster's became an orphan-house.Yet it was the private lesson which was taught ourown family through this foray of His Majesty's thatis engraven most deeply in my memory.

Throughout the summer, Cousin Placidia hadbeen more than ever a subject of irritation anddistress to Aunt Dorothy. The successes of Montrosein Scotland, followed by the plunderings of theking's troops in our own counties, had once morecaused her to feel much "exercised" as to whichwas the right side. In February, after theexecution of Archbishop Laud, Mr. Nicholls hadobediently substituted the Directory of Worship for theCommon Prayer, sorely trying thereby Aunt Dorothy'spredilections for unwritten, or ratherunprinted prayers; Mr. Nicholls' supplications nothaving, in her opinion, either unction or fire, beingin fact, she said, nothing but the old Liturgyminced and sent up cold. Her only comfort wasin the trust that sifting days were at hand. (TheTriers had not yet been appointed.) But whatvexed Aunt Dorothy's soul even more than anyecclesiastical "trimmings," was what she regardedas the gradual eating up of Placidia's heart by therust of hoarded wealth. Placidia had at that timean additional reason to justify herself for any amountof straitening and sparing, in the expectation of thebirth of her first child. This prospect opened a newfield for her economies and for Aunt Dorothy'sanxieties. Even the general devastations of thecountry, which opened every door and every heartwide to the sufferers, only effected the narrowestpossible opening in Placidia's stores. Her health,she said, obviously prevented her receiving anystrangers into the house; and it was little indeedthat a poor parson, with a family to provide for,and nothing but income to depend on, and thecertainty of receiving scarcely any tithes the nextseason, could have to spare. Such as she had, saidshe, she gave willingly. There was a stack of haybut slightly damaged by getting heated. Andthere was some preserved meat, a little strongperhaps from keeping, but quite wholesome and palatablewith a little extra salt. These she most gladlybestowed. Aunt Dorothy was in despair, andmade one last solemn appeal.

"Placidia," she said, "a child will shut up yourheart and be a curse to you, if you let it shut yourdoors against the poor; until at last who knowswhat door may be shut on you?"

"Aunt Dorothy," she said, with mild imperturbability,"everything may be made either a curse or ablessing. But to those who are in the covenanteverything is a blessing."

"Sister Gretel," said Aunt Dorothy, afterwards,"I see no way of escape for her. The mercies ofGod's providence and the doctrines of His gracefreeze on that poor woman's heart, until the ice isso thick that the sunshine itself can do nothing butjust thaw the surface, and make the next day's icesmoother and harder."

"Never give up hope, sister," said she. "Ourgood God has more weapons than we wot of, andmore means of grace than are counted in any of ourCatechisms and Confessions. Sometimes He canwarm the coldest heart with the glow of a newhuman love until all the ice melts away from within.And the touch of a little child's hand has openedmany a door, where the Master has afterwards comein and sat down and supped. When the Saviourwanted to teach the Pharisees, He set in the midstof them a little child."

"Children have dragged many a godly man backagain to Egypt," said she. "Many a rope whichbinds good men tight to the car of Mammon istwisted by very little hands."

A few nights afterwards we were roused by asuspicious glare in the direction of the Parsonage.The next morning early we went to see if anythinghad happened there.

Just after dusk, on the evening before, a party ofRoyalist troopers had appeared at the Parsonagegates. The house stood alone, at some littledistance from the village, at the end of theglebe-fields. The captain of the little troop said theywere on their way to join His Majesty at Oxford;but seeing a light, they were tempted to seek thehospitality of Mistress Nicholls, of which they hadheard in the neighbourhood.

Poor Placidia's protestations of poverty were oflittle avail with such guests. They politely assuredher they were used to rough fare, and wouldthemselves render any assistance she required towardspreparing the feast. Whereupon they put up theirhorses in the stables, supplied them liberally withcorn from, the granaries, seized the fattest of thepoultry, and strung them in a tempting row beforethe kitchen fire, which they piled into hugedimensions with any wooden articles that came first tohand, chairs and chests included; the contents ofthese chests being meanwhile skillfully rifled, andall that was most valuable in them of plate, linen,or silk, set apart in a heap "for the king's service."

The supper being prepared, they insisted on theirhost drinking His Majesty's health in the choicestwines in his cellar. The captain had been informed,he said, that Mr. Nicholls had been induced (reluctantly,of course, as he perceived from the ferventprotestations of loyalty) to disuse the Liturgy, andeven to contribute of his substance to the rebelcause. He felt glad, therefore, to be able to givehim this opportunity of proving his unjustly suspectedfidelity, and of contributing, at the same time, ofhis substance to His Majesty's service, by means ofthe portion of his goods which they would thenext day convey to His Majesty's head-quarters inthe loyal city of Oxford, and thus save it from beingmisapplied in this disaffected country, in a mannerwhich Mr. Nicholls' loyal heart must abhor. Thiswe heard from one of the frightened serving-wenches,who had escaped towards morning, and spreadthe news through the village.

As the night passed on, they grew riotous, andwere with difficulty roused from their carouse bythe captain, to see about getting their plundertogether before dawn. They poured on the groundwhat wine they could not drink, set fire (whetherby accident or on purpose was not known) to thelarge corn-stack whilst hunting about the sheds andstables for cattle and horses; till finally the inmateswere thankful to get them away early in the morning,although they took with them all the beaststhey could drive and all the booty they couldcarry.

The sympathy in the village was not deep, andAunt Dorothy and I went on in silence to theParsonage, to give what help and comfort we could.Neither Aunt Dorothy nor I spoke a word as wehastened up the rising ground towards the house.

The homely ruins of the farm-yard moved memore than many a stately ruin. The remains of thecorn-stack, the flames of which had alarmed us inthe night, stood there black and charred; the stableswere empty and the cattle-sheds; the house-dogwas hanged to the door of one of them; the yardwas strewn with trampled corn, which the sparrowsand starlings, in the absence of the privilegedpoultry, were making bold to pick up; and thesilence of the deserted court was made more dismalby the occasional restless lowing of a calf, whichwas roaming from one empty shed to another insearch of its mother.

We went into the house. The kitchen was fullof the serving-wenches, and of some of the morecurious and idle in the village, who were condolingwith each other, by making the worst of the disaster.The hearth was black with the cinders of theenormous fire of the night before, and the floor wasstrewn with broken pieces of the chairs and chestswhich had helped to kindle it, and with fragmentsof the feast. In a corner of the settle by the coldhearth sat Placidia, as if she were stupified, with herhands clasped and her eyes fixed upon them.

"Didst thou think I came for that?" said AuntDorothy. "But belike I deserve it of thee."

And with a voice a little sharpened by the feelingshe strove to repress, Aunt Dorothy sent thecurious neighbours to the right-about, and disposedof the two serving-wenches, by telling them thevery fowls of the air were setting such lazy sluts asthey were an example, and despatching them togather up the scattered corn in the yard.

"I've learnt many things, child, this last hour. Ijudged thee a Pharisee, and belike I've been a worseone myself. I've sat on the judgment-seat this manya day on thee. But I'm off it now. And may theLord grant me grace never to climb up thereagain. I've wished for some heavy rod to fall andteach thee. And now it's come, it can't smite theeheavier than it does me. Forgive me, child, and letus both begin again."

Placidia looked up, and meeting the honest eyesfixed on her, not in scorn but in entreaty, shesobbed,—

"Contriving and saving to make up all the thingsI have lost," replied Placidia. "I've been yearsheaping it together, and it's all gone in a night!"

Aunt Dorothy looked sorely puzzled, between herdesire to be charitable and her horror of Placidia'smisreading of the dispensation.

"Begin that again, my dear," she said, at last."Nay; thou must never begin that again. It willnever do to fly in the face of Providence like that."

Placidia uncovered her face, but as her eyes restedon the desolation around her, she covered themagain, and sobbed,—

"Just when there was to be one to save it all for,and make it worth while to deny oneself."

"Nay," said Aunt Dorothy; "that's the mercy.That's precisely the mercy. The Lord will not letthe child be a curse to thee. He will have it ablessing; so He says to thee as plain as can be, Igive thee a treasure, not to make thee rage andstint and grudge, but to teach thee to love and serveand give, not to make thee poor, but to make theerich. And He will go on teaching thee till thouopenest thy heart and learnest, and thy burden fallsoff, and thy heart leaps up, and thou shalt be free.I know it by the way my heart is lightened now.He's smitten me down for my sitting in judgmenton thee. Not that I'm safe never to climb that seatagain. One is there before one knows, and theblack-cap on in a moment. Some one is alwaysnear, I trow, to help us up."

And turning from Placidia, she proceeded to aquiet survey of the ruins, which, under her briskand discriminating hands, with such help as I couldgive, soon began to show some signs of order.

The fire was lighted; the calf despatched toNetherby to be fed; sundry fragments of chairsand chests to the village carpenter, to be mended;the broken meat put into two baskets.

"This is for the household," said Aunt Dorothy,"and that for the fatherless children at RachelForster's. One of the maids can take it at once,Placidia, when she leads away the calf."

Placidia was at length quite roused from herstupor. She looked at Aunt Dorothy as if she thoughtshe were in league with the plunderers.

"Me send meat to Rachel Forster's orphans!" shesaid faintly; "a poor plundered woman like me!"

"Better begin at once, my dear," said AuntDorothy; "the fatherless are God's little ones. Bettergive the treasure to them. You see our bags haveholes in them."

At that moment Mr. Nicholls returned. Placidiaappealed to him for his usual confirmation of heropinions.

"Dear heart," he said ruefully, "Belike MistressDorothy is right. It's of no use fighting againstGod. Who knoweth if He may turn and repentand leave a blessing behind Him."

"Nay, Master Nicholls," said Aunt Dorothy,"not that way. It's of no use trying to escape inthat way. You must let go altogether first, or theAlmighty will never take hold of you. It's hopingfor nothing again. If thou and Placidia will sendthis to the orphans, ye must send it because it hasbeen given to you, and because they want it morethan you do. Because thou wast an orphan, Placidia,"she added, tenderly, "and He has not failed tocare for thee. Take heed how ye slight His staffor His rod. Both have been used plainly enoughfor thee. I'll divide the stuff," she concluded,"and you must settle what to do with it yourselves,afterwards."

And insisting on Placidia's resting up-stairs whileshe subjected the contents of the chests strewnabout the chamber-floor to the same process of division,she left the house before dusk restored to somethinglike order, with two significant heaps ofclothing on the bed-chamber, and two significantbaskets of provisions in the kitchen, to speak whatparables they might during the night to theconsciences of Placidia and Mr. Nicholls.

But before the morning other teachers had beenthere. Death and Anguish—those merciful cursessent to keep the world, which had ceased to beEden, from becoming a sensual Elysium, idle, selfish,and purposeless—visited the house that night.Another life was ushered into the world under theshadow of Death itself. In the morning Placidialay feebly rejoicing in the infant-life for which herown had been so nearly sacrificed. Rejoicing in agift which had cost her so much, and which was tocost her so much more of patient sacrifices, toil andwatching, sacrifices for which no one would especiallyadmire her, and for which she would not admireherself; rejoicing as she had never rejoiced in anypossession before. Not by any supernatural effortof virtue, but by the simple natural fountain ofmotherly love which had been opened in her heart.One of the first things she said was to Rachel,who was watching with her through the nextnight. Very softly, as Rachel sat by her bed-sidewith the baby on her knee, Placidia said,—

"And," said Rachel (when she told me of it), "Icould not answer her all in a moment, for there areseas stronger and deeper than those outside ourdykes around our hearts. And it's not safe, even inthe quietest weather, opening the cranny to let inthose tides. So I said nothing. And in a fewmoments Mistress Nicholls spoke again, 'For thou artgood and worthy, Rachel,' said she, 'and it wouldbe no great wonder if the Lord gave thee the bestHe has to give.'

"Then I understood what she meant, and my heartwas nigh as glad as if the child had been given tome. For I thought there was a soul new born toGod as a little child, meek and lowly. The Lordhad led her along the hardest step on the way toHimself, the first step down. And she said nomore. I smoothed her pillow, laid the babe besideher, and she and it fell asleep. But I sat still andcried quietly for joy. And the next morning, whenthe light broke in, Mistress Nicholls looked up andsaw those two heaps Mistress Dorothy had set apart,and then she looked down on the babe, andmurmured as if to herself,—

"'Poor motherless little ones! God has givenme thee and spared me to thee. The poormotherless babes, they shall have the things.'

"And then," pursued Rachel, "I turned awayand cried again to myself half for gladness, andhalf for trouble. For I thought sure the Lord'sa-going to take her, poor lamb, if she's so changed asthat."

But Aunt Dorothy, when Rachel narrated this,although she wiped her eyes sympathetically, at thesame time gave her head a consolatory shake andsaid,—

"Never fear, neighbour, never fear, not yet.Depend on it, the old Enemy will have a fight forit yet. Depend on it, there's a good deal of workto be done for her in this world yet, before she'stoo good to be left in it."

"Davenant Hall, Twelfth Night, 1645-6.—Onlyfour years since that merry sixteenth birthday ofmine, when all the village were gathered in theHall, and Olive and I gave the garments to thevillage maidens of my own age, and in the eveningRoger stayed to help kindle the twelve bonfires.

"And now we are walled and moated out fromthe village and from the Manor as we were in theold days of the Norman Conquest, when the Davenantsfirst took possession of these lands, and builtthe old ruined keep, where the gateway is (whencethey afterwards removed to this abbey), to overawethe Saxon village, where the Draytons even thenlived in the old Manor. I wonder if there isanything left of the old contentions in Saxon andNorman blood now. The rebel army is so muchcomposed, they say, both of officers and men, of thestout old Saxon yeomanry, and the traders in thetowns; whilst ours is officered from the old baronialcastles, by gentlemen with the old Norman historicalnames. How many of the higher gentry andnobility are loyal has been proved these last sixmonths, since fatal Naseby, by the sieges (and,alas! by the stormings and surrenders) of at leasta score of old castles and mansions, from Bristol,surrendered on the 11th of September by PrinceRupert to Bovey Tracey in the faithful West.Thank Heaven, they gave Oliver Cromwell and SirThomas Fairfax much trouble, Basing Hall especially.In future days, when the king shall enjoy hisown again (as he surely will), I hold such a blackenedruin will be a choicer possession to a gentleman'sfamily than a palace furnished regally. Therebels called Basing HouseBasting, for the mischiefit did them. And our men called itLoyally.

"Roger Drayton hath shared, no doubt, in manyof these sieges. So stern in his delusion of duty, Isuppose, if this brewer of Huntingdon commandedhim, he would not scruple to plant his reble gunsagainst us. 'Thine eye shall not spare,' they say,in their hateful cant. Sir Launcelot says they havebeen chasing His Sacred Majesty from place toplace like a hunted stag; that Mr. Cromwell,whom Roger loves above king and friend, neversets on any great enterprise without having a 'text'to lean on! That before storming Basing Hall, hepassed the night in prayer, and that the text heespecially 'rested on' for that achievement was Psalmcxviii. 8: 'They that make them are like unto them, sois every one that trusteth in them!' as if we Royalistswere Canaanites, idolaters, Papists, I know notwhat. Fancy burning down a corn-stack to apsalm-tune, or setting out on a burglary to a text.Yet what is it better to burn down loyal gentlemen'shouses about their ears, from one end of Englandto another. It is all Conscience; this dreadfulMoloch of Conscience! It was the one weakpoint of the Draytons always.

"Sir Launcelot Trevor came here a week since tosee if anything can be done to strengthen thefortifications. My Father was in Bristol when it wasstormed, and has followed the king ever since; twoof my brothers are in Ireland, seeing what can bedone there; two fled beyond the seas after thedefeat of the gallant Marquis of Montrose lastSeptember at Philipshaugh, near Selkirk; and two lie onthat fatal Rowton Heath, where on September the23rd the king's last army, worth the name, wasbroken and lost.

"We have made sacrifices enough to endear theroyal cause to us. I suppose this old house will bethe next. For Harry said it would never stand asiege. But, oh, if I could only be sure Sir Launcelotis mistaken in what he says about Roger givingHarry his death-blow, much of the rest would seemlight. I have never yet told my Mother of thisdread. Sometimes when I think how Roger lookedand spoke that morning, I feel sure it cannot betrue. But he always said it was so wrong tobelieve things because I wished them true. And nowthe more I long to believe this false, the less I seemable.

"Only four years since that merry sixteenthbirthday, when I was a child. And then thathappy summer afterwards, when the world seemed togrow so beautiful and great, and it seemed as if wewere to do such glorious things in it.

"First the birthdays seem like triumphalcolumns, trophies of a conquered year. Then likemile-stones, marking rather sadly the way we havecome. But now I think they look like grave-stones,so much is buried for ever beneath this terrible yearthat is gone. Not lives only, but love, and trust,and hope.

"I said so to my Mother to-night, as I wishedher good-night. It was selfish. For I ought tocomfort her. But she comforted me. She said,'The birthdays will look like mile-stones again,by-and-by, sweetheart. They will be marked on theother side, "so much nearer home," and perhapsat last like trophies again, marking the conqueredyears.'

"'Oh, Mother, don't speak like that, don't sayyou look on them like that. Think of me at thebeginning of the journey, so near the beginning.'

"For my sake; only for my sake. For her ownshe longs to go. And that is saddest of all to me.

"For, except on days like these, when I thinkand look back, I am not always so very wretched.It is very strange, after all that has happened. ButI am sometimes—rather often—a little bit happy.There is so much that is cheerful and beautiful inthe world, I cannot help enjoying it. And pleasantthings might happen yet.

"I did love Harry, dearly; nearly better thanany one. I do. But to my Mother losing himseems just the one sorrow which puts her on theother side of all earthly joys and sorrows, with agreat gulf between, so that she looks on them fromafar off, like an angel.

"I suppose there is justthe one thing which wouldbe the darkening of the whole world to most of us,making it night instead of day. Other people leavethat sepulchre behind. It is grown over, and inyears it becomes a little sacred grass-grown mound,or a stately memorial to the life ended there.

"But to one, it has madethe whole earth a sepulchre,at which she stands without, weeping andlooking on.

"The day after.—Sir Launcelot and I have hadhigh words to-day. We were looking from theterrace towards Netherby, and I said something aboutold times, and that the Draytons would probablyresume the lands they had lost in old times at theConquest.

"I fired up, and said not one of the Draytonswould ever touch anything that did not belong tothem. 'They were not of Prince Rupert'splunderers,' said I.

"'No doubt,' said he, 'they hold by a betterright than the sword.' And with nasal solemnity,clasping his hands, he added, 'Voted, it is writtenthe saints shall possess the land; voted, we are thesaints.'

"'Sir Launcelot,' I said, 'you know I hate tohear old friends spoken of like that.'

"(When I had written bitter things myself ofthem but yesterday! But it always angers mewhen people are unfair.)

"Here he changed his tone, and spoke seriouslyenough. Too seriously, indeed, by far. He saidsomething about my opinion being more to himthan anything in the world. And when I wentback into the garden-parlour, not desiring suchdiscourse, he was on his knees at my feet, before Icould raise him, pouring out, I know not whatpassionate protestations, and saying that I could savehim, and reclaim him, and make him all he longedto be, and was not. And that if I rejected him,there was not another power on earth or heaventhat could keep him from plunging into perdition,which perplexed and grieved me much. For I donot love him. Of that I am sure. But it is terribleto think of being the only barrier between anyhuman soul and destruction. And I am half afraid totell my Mother, for fear she should counsel me totake Sir Launcelot's conversion on me. Becauseshe thinks everything of no weight compared withreligion. But I cannot think it would be a duty tomarry a person for the same reason from which youmight become his godmother. Besides, if I did notlove, what real power should I have to save?

"At night (later).—I have told my Mother, andshe says that last consideration makes it quite clear.I could have no power for good, unless I loved.And I do not love Sir Launcelot; and I nevercould.

"At the same time, when I opened my heart toher about this, I ventured at last to tell her whatSir Launcelot had thought about Harry and RogerDrayton. I wish I had told her weeks ago.

"For she does not believe it. She says Rogerwould never have come and told us had it been so.She has not the slightest fear it can be true. Ithas lightened my heart wonderfully. Roger isnot quite just in saying I can believe in anything Iwish.

"March.—A biting March for the good cause.On the 14th brave Sir Ralph Hopton surrenderedin Cornwall. On the 22nd brave old Sir JacobAstley (he who made the prayer before Edgehillfight, 'Lord, if I forget Thee this day, do not Thouforget me'), was beaten at Stow in Gloucestershire,as he was bringing a small force he had gatheredwith much pains, to succour the king at Oxford.'You have now done your work and may go toplay,' he said to the rebels who captured him,'unless you fall out among yourselves.' Gallantsententious old veteran that he is!

"We marvel he should have trusted his sacredperson with Covenanted Presbyterians. But ingood sooth he may well be weary of wandering,and may look for some pity yet in his ownfellow-countrymen. Not that they showed much to thesweet fair lady his father's mother.

"We hear it was but unwillingly he went to themat night, between two and three o'clock in themorning, on the 27th of April. A few days sincehe left the shelter of Oxford, faithful to him so long;riding disguised as a servant, behind his faithfulattendant Mr. Ashburnham. Once he was askedby a stranger on the road if his master were anobleman. 'No,' quoth the king, 'my master is one ofthe Lower House,' a sad truth, forsooth, thoughspoken in parable. It is believed amongst us thathe would fain have reached the eastern coast, thenceto take ship for Scotland, to join Montrose and thetrue Scots with him. For his flight was uncertain,and changed direction more than once—toHenley-on-Thames, Slough, Uxbridge; then to the top ofHarrow Hill, across the country to St. Albans,where the clattering hoofs of a farmer behind themgave false alarm of pursuit; thence by the housesof many faithful gentlemen who knew and lovedhim, but respected his disguise and made as thoughthey knew him not; to Downham in Norfolk; toSouthwell, and thence, beguiled by promises somesay, others declare throwing himself of his own freewill like a prince on the ancient Scottish loyalty,he rode to Newark into the midst of the Earl ofLeven's army.

"August, 1646.—The civil war, they give outnow, is over. Every garrison and castle in thekingdom have surrendered. In June, loyal Oxford; andnow, last and most loyal of all, on the 19th ofAugust, Ragland Castle, with the noble old Marquisof Worcester, who hath ruined himself past allremedy in the king's service, and in this world willscarce now find his reward.

"In June, Prince Rupert rode through the land,and embarked at Dover. Well for the good causeif he had never come. His marauding ways gavequite another complexion to the war from what itmight have had without him. His rashness, Harrythought, lost us many a field. His lawlessnessinfected our army. The king could not forgive himhis surrender of Bristol a few days after he was ledto believe it could be held for months. But in thissome think perchance he is less to blame thanelsewhere. Cromwell and the Ironsides were there andthey stormed the city, and it seems as if thisCromwell could never be baffled.

"With Prince Rupert went three hundred loyalgentlemen, some despairing of the cause at home,others, and with them my Father, on missions toseek aid from foreign courts.

"February, 1647.—The Scottish army has yieldedhim up ('Bought and sold,' His Majesty said; otherssay the two hundred thousand pounds the Scotchreceived was for the expenses of the war,) into thehands of the English Presbyterians at Newcastle.

"March.—We have seen the king once more.My Mother has heard for certain the true causewhy the king was given up by the Scotch to hisenemies. He would not sign their blood-stainedCovenant. He would not sacrifice the Church ofthese kingdoms, with her bishops and her sacredliturgy, though nobles, loyal men and true, naythe queen herself, by letter, entreated him. Mymother saith he is now in most literal truth amartyr, suffering for the spotless bride—our dearMother, the Church of England—and for the truth.We heard he was to arrive at Holmby House inNorthamptonshire, and, weak as my Mother is,nothing would content her but to be borne thitherin a litter to pay him her homage. I would nothave missed it for the world. Numbers ofgentlemen and gentlewomen were there to welcome himwith tears and prayers and hearty acclamations.It did our hearts good to hear the hearty cheersand shouts, and I trust cheered his also. The rebeltroopers were Englishmen enough to offer nohindrance. And we had the joy of gazing once more onthat kingly pathetic countenance. He is serene andcheerful, as a true martyr should be, my mothersays, accepting his cross and rejoicing in it, notmorose and of a sad countenance as those who feignto be persecuted for conscience sake. He scorns noblameless pleasure which can solace the weary hoursof captivity, riding miles sometimes to a goodbowling-green to play at bowls, and beguiling theevenings with chess or converse on art withMr. Harrington or Mr. Herbert.

"He will not suffer a Presbyterian chaplain tosay grace at his table, and the hard-hearted jailerswill allow no other.

"Thank heaven the common people are true tohim still, as they took him from Newcastle toHolmby House the simple peasants flocked roundto see him and bless him, and to feel the healingtouch of his sacred hand for the king's evil. SirHarry Marten, a rebel and a republican, made aprofane jest thereon, and said, 'The touch of thegreat seal would do them as much good.' But no onerelished the scurrilous jest. And the blessings andprayers of the poor followed the king everywhere.Yes; it is the common people and the nobles thathonour true greatness. The Scribes and Pharisees,I am persuaded, sprang from the middle-orderyeomen, craftsmen, chapmen. "Tithing mint anddevouring widows' houses," are just base, weeping,unpunishable middle-station sins. The troubles of thismiddle class are wretched, low, carkingmoney-troubles. The sorrows of the high and low arenatural ennobling sorrows; bereavement, pain, anddeath. It is the sordid middle order that enviesthe great. The common people reverence themwhen on high places, and generously pity themwhen brought low. My Mother says, belike thesorrows of their king shall yet move the honestheart of the nation to a reverent pity, and thusback to loyalty, and so, as so often in greatconflicts, more be won through suffering than throughsuccess.

"April, 1647.—We are to pay our last penalty.Our old hall is declared to be a perilous nest oftraitors and cradle of insurrection. A rebelgarrison is to be quartered on us.

"Our expedition to Holmby, has led to tworesults; it offended some of the people in authorityamong the rebels, and thereby caused them to takepossession of the hall; and it so taxed my mother'swasted strength that she is unfit for any journey,so that we must even stay and suffer the presenceof these insolent and rebellious men in our home.

"April, Davenant Hall.—Mr. Drayton hath beenhere to-day. He looked pale and thin from thelong imprisonment he has had, and he hath lost hisright arm—a sore loss to him who ever took suchpleasure in his geometrical instruments, and playedthe viol-di-gambo so masterly.

"He gave a slight start when he saw my mother,and there was a kind of anxious compassionatereverence in his manner towards her which makes meuneasy. I fear he deems her sorely changed, andofttimes I have feared the same. But then thismourning garb which she will never more lay aside,and her dear gray hair, which I love, put back likean Italian Madonna from her forehead, in itselfmakes a difference. Although I think her eyesnever looked so soft and beautiful as now. Thegolden hair of youth, and all its brilliant colour,seems to me scarcely so fair as this silver hair ofhers, with the soft pale hues on her cheeks.

"Mr. Drayton asked us to take asylum at NetherbyHall till such time as we join my fatherelsewhere. My mother knows what Harry thought,and seems not averse to accept his hospitality. Icertainly had not thought to enter old Netherbyagain in such guise as this."

The old house seemed to gain a kind of sacrednesswhen it became the refuge of that dear bereavedLady and sweet Lettice. Lady Lucy was muchchanged. Her voice always soft, was low as thesoft notes in a hymn; her step, always light, wasslower and feebler; her hair, though still abundant,had changed from luxuriant auburn to a soft silverybrown; her cheeks were worn into a different curve,though still, I thought, as beautiful, and the colourin them was paler. Everything in her seemed tohave changed from sunset to moonlight. Her voiceand her very thoughts seem to come from afar;from some region we could not tread, like musicborne over still waters. It was as if she hadcrossed a river which severed her far from us, which shewould never more recross, but only wait till thecall came to mount the dim heights on the otherside. Not that she was in any way sad or uninterested,or abstracted, only she did not seem to belongto us any more.

I wondered if Lettice saw this as I did. And manya time the tears came to my eyes as I looked atthose two and thought how strong were the cordsof love which bound them, and how feeble thethread of life.

Aunt Dorothy welcomed Lady Lucy with as truea tenderness as any one. The silvery hair in placeof those heart-breakers—the hair silvered sosuddenly by sorrow—softened her in more ways thanone. One thing, however, tried her sorely. And Imuch dreaded the explosion it might lead to ifAunt Dorothy's conscience once got the upper handof her hospitality.

The Lady Lucy always had a little erectionclosely resembling an altar, in her oratory at home,dressed in white, with sacred books on it; the HolyScriptures, A Kempis, Herbert, and others, and abovethem a copy of a picture by Master Albert Durer,figuring our Lord on the Cross, the sufferingthorn-crowned form gleaming pale and awful from theterrible noonday darkness. Before this solemn picturestood two golden candlesticks, which at night thewaiting gentlewomen were wont to light. I shallnever forget Aunt Dorothy's expression of dismayand distress when she first saw this erection, oneevening soon after Lady Lucy's arrival. Shemastered herself so far as to say nothing to Lady Lucythen, beyond the good wishes for the night, anddirections as to some possets which she had come toadminister.

But the solemn change that came over her voiceand face she could not conceal. And afterwardsshe solemnly summoned us into my Father's privateroom to make known her discovery.

"An idol, brother!" she concluded, "anabomination! At this moment, probably, idol-worshipgoing on under this roof, drawing down on us allthe lightnings of heaven!"

"I should not use such a thing as a help to devotionmyself, Sister Dorothy," said my Father; "butwhat would you have me do?"

"Help to devotion!" she exclaimed, "'Thoushalt not make any graven image, nor the likenessof any thing.' Sweep them away with the besomof destruction, and cast the idols to the moles andto the bats."

"Sister Dorothy," he said, "you would not haveme take a hammer, and axe, and cords, and dragthis piece of painted work from the Lady Lucy'schamber before her eyes."

"But in the first place I must know that it is anidol to Lady Lucy," he said, "and that she doesbow down to it."

"Subtle distinctions, brother; traffickings withthe enemy. Heaven grant they prove not our ruin,as of Jehoshaphat before us."

For Aunt Dorothy, although she had forsaken thejudgment seat for private offences, would still havedeemed it an impiety to abandon it in cases of heresy.

"Sister Dorothy," interposed Aunt Gretel, "inmy country good men and women do use suchthings and do not become idolaters thereby intheir private devotion and in the churches."

"Belike they do, sister Gretel," rejoined AuntDorothy, drily. "The hand that would have pulleddown the Epistle of St. James might well leavesome idols standing. An owl sees better than ablind man. But it is no guide to those whoseeyes are used to-day."

This profane comparison of Dr. Luther to an owldismayed Aunt Gretel, so as to throw her entirelyout of the conflict, which finished with an ordinancefrom my Father that liberty of conscience shouldbe the order of his household; and a protest fromAunt Dorothy that, be the consequences what theymay, she would not suffer any immortal soul withinher reach to go the broad road to ruin withoutwarning.

Which threat kept us in anxious anticipation.We took the greatest care not to leave the combatantsalone; one so determined and the other sounconscious of danger.

It was early in April, a fortnight after Lady Lucyand Lettice took shelter under our roof.

The Presbyterian majority in the House ofCommons, believing the civil war ended, were veryeager to disband the army which had ended it, butwhich, being mostly composed of Independents,they dreaded even more than the king.

In February, they had voted that no officer underSir Thomas Fairfax should hold any rank higherthan a colonel, intending thereby to displace OliverCromwell, Ireton, Ludlow, Blake, Skippon, andAlgernon Sydney, and, in short, every commanderwhom the army most trusted, and under whomtheir victories had been gained.

They were to be disbanded, moreover, withoutreceiving their pay, now due for more than half ayear. It was also proposed that such of thesoldiers as were still kept together should be sent toIreland to settle matters there, under newPresbyterian commanders, instead of those whom theyknew and trusted.

The indignation in the army was deep. But itwas as much under the restraint of law, and wasexpressed in as orderly a way, as if the army hadbeen a court of justice. The regiments met,deliberated, remonstrated, and drew up a petition,demanded arrears of pay, and refused to go to Irelandsave under commanders they knew. "For the desireof our arrears," they said, "necessity, especiallyof our soldiers, enforced us thereunto. We leftour estates, and many of us our trade and callingsto others, and forsook the contentments of a quietlife, not fearing nor regarding the difficulties of warfor your sakes; after which we hoped that thedesires of our hardly earned wages would have beenno unwelcome request, nor argued us guilty of theleast discontent or intention of mutiny."

No one, my Father said, could deny the truth ofthis. The Parliament army had not eked out withplunder their arrears of pay.

On the 3d of April three soldiers—Adjutators (orAgitators, as some called them)—had been sentwith a respectful but determined message to theHouse of Commons. General Cromwell (attendingin his place in the House in spite of the plots therehad been during the past weeks, as he knew, tocommit him to the Tower) rose and spoke at length ofthe danger of driving the army to extremities.

And now Dr. Antony came with the tidings thatGeneral Cromwell was at Saffron Walden, bearingto the army the promise of indemnity and arrears.He brought also a brief letter from Roger, sayingthat now all was sure to go right.

This news drew us all together, and it was notuntil she had been absent some time that it wasdiscovered that Aunt Dorothy had left us.

Aunt Gretel was the first to perceive her departure,and to suspect its cause. At once she repairedto Lady Lucy's chamber, whence, in a minute ortwo, she returned, and pressing me lightly on theshoulder, she said, in a solemn whisper,—

"Olive, it must be stopped; the Lady Lucy islooking like a ghost, and Mistress Lettice like adamask rose, and your Aunt Dorothy is talkingLatin."

This was Aunt Gretel's formula for controversiallanguage. She said English was composed of twoelements; the German she could understand; weused it, she said, when we were speaking of thingsnear our hearts, of matters of business, or ofaffection, or of religion, in a peaceable and kindlymanner. But the Latin was beyond her. There werelong words ination,atical, orarian, which alwayscame on the field when there was to be a battle.And then she always withdrew. In this martialarray Aunt Dorothy's thoughts were now beingclothed. And Aunt Gretel thought I had better summonmy Father to interrupt the debate.

I went at once and indicated to him the danger.He looked half angry half amused.

"Dr. Antony," he said, "your medical attendanceis required up-stairs. My sister has recommencedthe Civil War."

At the moment when I entered the room thecontroversy had reached a climax. Lady Lucywas sitting very pale and upright, and on ahigh-backed chair with tears in her eyes, and saying in afaint voice,—

Lettice, behind the chair, with her arm round hermother, and her hand on her shoulder, like achampion, stood with quivering lips and burning cheeks,and rejoined that "there were worse heretics thanthe Papists, worse tyrants than the Inquisition." WhilstAunt Dorothy, as pale as Lady Lucy, andwith lips quivering as much as Lettice's, faced themboth with the consciousness of being herself awitness or a martyr for the truth struggling within heragainst the sense that she was regarded by othersin the light of an inquisitor and tormentor of martyrs.

"An't please you, Lady Lucy," I said, "my Fatherthought Dr. Antony, who is down-stairs, mightrecommend you some healing draught. He haswonderful recipes for coughs."

And before a reply could be given, my Fatherand Dr. Antony were at the door, and Aunt Dorothywas arrested in her testimony without thepossibility of uttering a last word.

Dr. Antony seemed to comprehend the positionat a glance. With a quiet courtesy which introducedhim at once, and gave him the command of thefield, he went up to Lady Lucy, and, feeling herpulse, observed that it was slightly feverish anduneven, ordered the windows to be open, andrecommended that as much air as possible should beobtained, by means of all but Mistress Lettice leavingthe room. He had little doubt then that some coolingmedicines, which he had at hand, would do therest. As I was going Lettice entreated me to stay,which I was ready to do.

And ere long we were all three quietly gatheredaround Lady Lucy's chair, Lettice on a cushion ather feet (where she best loved to be), I on thewindow-seat near, and Dr. Antony leaning on the backof her chair. She was discoursing to him in French,which she spoke with a marvellously natural accent,and which I had never heard him speak before. Iknow not why, it seemed as if the language threwa new vivacity and fire into his countenance, and Ifelt very ignorant, and humbled, not to be able tojoin. But this feeling did not last long, Lady Lucyhad a way of divining what passed in the mind, andshe called me near, and made me sit on a littlechair beside her, and drew my hand into hers, andencouraged me to say such words as I knew, andpraised my accent, and said it had just that prettyEnglish lisp in it that some of the countrymen ofpoor Queen Henrietta Maria had thought charming.

She made Dr. Antony tell us moving historiesstill in French of his ancestors, their daring deedsand hair-breadth 'scapes. So an hour passed, andwe were all friends, bound together by the easycharm of her sweet gracious manner, and hadforgotten the storm and everything else, till we weresummoned to supper.

"Ah, Monsieur!" said she, giving him her handas she took leave of him, with a smile, "re-assureMistress Dorothy as to my orthodoxy, and make herbelieve my sympathies are on the right side withthe sufferers of St. Bartholomew's Day. And Olive,little champion," said she, drawing my foreheaddown to her for a kiss, and stroking my cheek,"never think it necessary again to interpose in abattle between your aunt and your Mother's friend.I honour her from my heart for her fidelity toconscience. And if she is more anxious than necessaryabout my faith—we should surely bear one anotherno grudge for that. I know it cost her more thanit did me for her to exhort me as she did. And Iam not sure," she added, smiling, "if after all shedoes not love me better than any of you."

"Mistress Olive," said Dr. Antony, as we sat thatevening in the dusk, by the window of my Father'sroom, while he wrote, "I would that Christianwomen understood the beautiful work they mightdo if they would take their true part as such."

"What would that be?" I said, thinking, afterthe experience of to-day, it might probably be thepart of the Mute.

"To see that Morals and Theology, Charity andTruth, are never divorced," he replied. "To winus back to the Beatitudes when we are strayinginto the curses. To lead us back to Persons whenwe are groping into abstractions. For Books fullof dogma, Orthodox, Arminian supra-lapsarian, orotherwise, to give us a home, a living world, fullof the Father, the Son, and the Comforter, of angelsand brothers. To see that we never petrify thethought of the Living God into a metaphysicalformula, still less into a numerical term. Never to letus forget that the great purpose of redemption is tobring us to God; that the great purpose of the Churchis to make us good. When we have clipped, andstretched, and stiffened the living Truth into thenarrow immutability of our theological or philosophicaldefinitions, to breathe it back again into the unfathomablesimplicity of the wisdom that brings heavenlyawe over the faces of little children, and heavenlypeace into the eyes of dying men. To keep thewindows open through our definitions into God'sInfinity. To translate our ingenious, definite,unchangeable scholastic terms into the simple, infinite,ever-changing—because ever-living—words of dailyand eternal life; so that holiness shall never cometo mean a stern or mystic quality quite differentfrom goodness; or righteousness, a mere legalqualification quite different from justice; or, humility, asupernatural attainment quite different from beinghumble; or charity, something very far from simplybeing gentle, and generous, and forbearing; andbrethren, an ecclesiastical noun of multitude totallyunconnected with brother. When women rise totheir work in the Church, it seems to me the Churchwill soon rise to her true work in the world."

"You speak with fervour," said my Father, risingfrom the table, and smiling as he laid his hand onDr. Antony's shoulder; "the womanhood you pictureis something loftier than that of Eve."

"Mary's Ave has gone far to transfigure the nameof Eve," he replied. "'Ecce concilia Domini' shallecho deeper and further and be remembered longerthan 'The serpent tempted me and I did eat.' But,"he added, "we have a better type than Maryfor woman as well as man, in Him who came not tobe ministered unto but to minister. I was chieflythinking of the gifts most common, it seems to me,to women, and least to controversialists, I mean,imagination and common sense. Imagination whichpenetrates, from signs to things signified, whichpierces, for instance, into the depth and meaning ofsuch words as 'eternity' and 'accursed'—whichalso penetrates behind the adjective 'Calvinistic orArminian,' to the substantive men and womenwhose theology they define. And common sense,which, when a conclusion contradicts our inbornconscience of right and wrong, refuses to receive italthough the path to it be smoothed and hedged bylogic without a flaw.

"In other words," said my Father, "you wouldsay that, with women the heart corrects the errorsof the head oftener than we suffer it to do so withus. We must remember, however, that the heartand the conscience also are not infallible, and thatthe same qualities which can make women the bestsaints make them the worst controversialists.Theology and morals being in their hearts thus closelyintertwined, they fight against a mistake as if itwere a sin. They quicken abstractions, and evenrites and ceremonies, into personal life, and are aptto defend them with a blind and passionate vehemenceas they would the character of a husband ora son."

"Is it not just the lowliness of our lot that makesit high? Can we help our voices becoming shrill,if we will have them loud?"

"Tune thine then, sweetheart, where first I learnthow sweet it was," said my Father, stroking mycheek. "By sick-beds, or by children's cradles, or,in the house of mourning, or wherever good wordsare needed only to be heard by the one to whomthey are spoken; there women's voices are attunedto their truest tones."

And the next morning I had that walk in theorchard with Dr. Antony, when he told me the secretwhich my Father would persist in declaring (mostunwarrantably, I think) lay at the root of his highexpectations as to the future work and destinies ofwomen.

And when, a few hours afterwards, after I hadbeen alone a while, and we had knelt together andreceived my Father's blessing, and I began tounderstand my happiness a little, and went and saidsomething about it to Lady Lucy, and especiallyhow strange it was that Dr. Antony said he hadthought of it so long, whilst I had not been dreamingof it, she kissed my forehead, and said with asmile,—

"Very strange, my unsuspecting little Puritan.For it crossed my thoughts the first hour I saw youtogether, and that was yesterday evening. Ah,Olive," she added, very tenderly, in a falteringvoice, "I had fond thoughts once that it might havebeen otherwise. If my Harry had lived, and thispoor distracted realm had returned to herallegiance, I had thought perchance some day to havethe right to call thee by the tenderest name. ButGod hath not willed it so. And I try hard that hiswill may be mine. He hath given thee the greatgift of a good man's heart. And I have no fear butthat thou wilt keep it."

CHAPTER XII.

Netherby,May, 1647.—They have givenus the best upper chambers in the house,one for a withdrawing-chamber, the otherfor my Mother's and my sleeping-chamber.This last has a broad embayed window commandingthe orchard, at the bottom of which is thepond where the water-lilies grow that Rogergathered for me on that night when Dr. Taylor andMr. Milton discoursed together on the terrace, inspeech like rich music, about liberty of thinkingand speaking.

"England has been echoing another kind of musicall these years since, on the same theme; but itseems as if we had drawn but little nearer aconclusion. The Presbyterians seem as convinced of thesin of allowing any one else to think or speak freelyas the poor martyred Archbishop was. ThePresbyterians, it seems, are for the Covenant (meaningPresbytery), King, and Parliament; the Covenantfirst. We for King without Covenant and withBishops. But the Presbyterians are againstconventicles and all sectaries (except themselves).Herein, so far, we and they agree, and herein, somethink, may be a hope for the good cause. If wecould make a compromise, order might, it is thought,be speedily restored. This, however, seems veryhard. They would have to sacrifice the Covenant,which seems nigh as dear to them as the Bible.We, the Church by law established; the sacredlinks, my Mother says, which bind us to the CatholicChurch of all the past, which the king will die,she thinks, rather than do. The only chance, therefore,of agreement seems to be, if the Presbyteriansever reach the point of hating or fearing theIndependents more than they love the Covenant. Then,some think the King and the Presbyterians,Scottish and English, might unite and overpower theIndependents; and—what then?

"I cannot at all imagine. Because, when thecommon enemy is gone, Episcopacy and the Covenantstill remain, and in the face of each other. SirLauncelot said the king thinks he has a very plain'game' to play. 'He must persuade one of his enemiesto extirpate the other, and then come in easilyand put the weakened victor under his feet.' Thishe has in letters declared to be his intention. Itrust the royal letters have been misread. Forsuch a 'game' seems to me very far from paternalor kingly; and, except on far better testimony, Iwill not credit it. But for me there is an especialgrief in all these matters. Olive, who takes herpolitics mostly from Roger, seems to lean to theIndependents, who constitute the strength of the army,and to General Cromwell, who is their idol; sothat whatever cause triumphs, nothing is likely tobring peace between the Davenants and the Draytons.

"At present, however, our peace in this house ismuch increased. My Mother and Mistress Dorothyhave concluded a treaty on the ground of theircommon loyalty to His Majesty, and their commonabhorrence of 'sectaries.'

"Moreover, Mistress Dorothy is marvellous gentleand kind to us. Having delivered herconscience, she treats my Mother with a tenderconsideration and deference that go to my heart, althoughsometimes I think it is only from the pity a benevolentjailer would feel for sentenced criminals. Theyhave been condemned. Justice will be satisfied.And meantime, mercy may safely satisfy herself bykeeping them fed and warmed.

"She says little; but she watches my Mother'stastes, and supplies her with unexpected delicaciesin a way which binds my whole heart to her.

"I scarce know why; but I always liked her.She is so downright and true; manly, as a man maybe womanly. She is most like Roger in some waysof any of them, only he, being really a man and asoldier, is gentler. And when she loves you, itseems to be in spite of herself, which makes it allthe sweeter. For she does love me. I am sure ofit, by the way she watches and exhorts, andcontradicts me. Especially, since I read her thosesermons that afternoon when we were waiting. Iasked Olive, and she told me Mistress Dorothy said,that afternoon, she thought I had gracious dispositions.That meant, I opine, that she liked me. Shewanted to excuse herself for liking so worldly andBabylonish a young damosel as she believed meto be. And, therefore, she has invested me with'gracious dispositions,' and believes herselfcommissioned to bring me out of Babylon, and to be a'means of grace' to me, which, I am sure, I amwilling she should be. For my heart is too light andcareless, I know well. Except on one or two points.And, meantime, I flatter myself I may be an'ordinance and means of grace' in some little measure toher, little as she might acknowledge it. It doesgood people so much good to love (really love Imean, not take in hand merely like patients) peoplewho are not so good as themselves. It sets themplanning, praying for others, and takes them awayfrom looking within for signs, and forward forrewards; by filling the heart with love, which is themost gracious sign, and the most glorious rewardin itself.

"Think what she may, she would not have beena greater saint at Little Gidding, although she hadchanted the Psalter through three hundred andsixty-five times in the year.

"I think she and Mistress Dorothy help eachother. They make me think of the two groups ofgraces in the Bible. St. Paul's,—'Love, joy, peace,long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,temperance.' I picture these as sweet maidenly ormatronly forms white-robed, radiant, with lowsweet voices. They represent my Mother and theholy people of Mr. Herbert's school. Then thereare St. Peter's,—'Faith, virtue, knowledge,temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly-kindness,charity.' These rise before me like a company ofknights in armour, valiant, true, and pure. In thekind of plain, manly armour of the Ironsides, asRoger looked in it that morning at Oxford, whenhe turned back and waved farewell to me in thecourt of the College. And these represent MistressDorothy and the nobler Puritans. They are thesame, no doubt, essentially; love and charity, themother of one group, the king and crown of theother. Yet they seem to represent to me twodiverse orders of piety, the manly and the womanly.Together, side by side, in mutual aid and service,not front to front in battle, what a church and whata world they might make.

"But the great event in the house now is thebethrothal of Olive and Dr. Antony, which tookplace on the very morning after Mistress Dorothy'sgrand Remonstrance.

"Dr. Antony left a day or two afterwards. Andover since we have been as busy as possible preparingfor the wedding, which is to be in July. Not along betrothal-time. But they needed not furthertime to try each other.

"It is very pleasant to be all of us occupied forher, who is so little wont to be occupied withherself. She seems in a little tumult of happiness, asfar as any Puritan soul can be in a tumult.

"They have their solemnities, I see, and theirritual, and ceremonial; and their symbolism andsacred art, moreover, say what Mistress Dorothy mayto the contrary.

"Tender sacred family rites and solemnities.They have, indeed, no chapel or chaplain. But thefamily seems a little church; the father is the priest.Not without sacred beauty this order, nor withoutsanction either from the fathers of the Church(fathers older than Archbishop Laud's), the fathersAbraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

"For instance, when Olive and Dr. Antony werebetrothed, Mr. Drayton led them into his room,and laid his hands on them, and blessed them. Andthat was the seal of their betrothal. Every Sundaymorning, Olive tells me, when she and Roger werechildren, after family prayers, they used to kneelthus for their father's blessing. Sacred touches,holy as coronation sacring oil, I think, to bear aboutthe memory of through life. But then there is thisto be remembered. When the consecrating touchis from hands which work with us in daily life, theyneed to be very pure. No pomp of place, and nomist of distance glorifies the ministrant. He hadneed, indeed, to be all glorious within.

"Family solemnities must be very true to be atall fair. I can fancy Puritan hypocrisy, or a mereformal Puritanism, the driest and most hideousthing in the world.

"Then as to symbols and sacred art. What elseare these Scripture texts, carved over door-ways,graven on chimney-stones, emblazoned on walls?'They are not graven images,' saith MistressDorothy. But what are words but images within thesoul, or images, rightly used, but children's words?Not that even as to 'holy pictures' and 'images'they are quite destitute. What else are the paintingsfrom Scripture on the Dutch tiles in Mr. Drayton'sroom, where Olive and Roger learned fromMistress Gretel's lips their earliest Bible lore? Itis true, they are chiefly from the Old Testament.But Adam and Eve delving, the serpent darting outhis forked tongue from the tree, Noah and theanimals walking out of the ark, are as much picturesas St. Peter fishing, or the blessed Virgin and theBabe, on church windows? What difference, then,except that the Puritan pictures are on tiles athome instead of on glass at church? 'They are forinstruction, and not for idolatry,' saith MistressDorothy. But did not the monks in old times painttheir pictures also for instruction, and not foridolatry? 'Centuries of abuse make the most innocentthings perilous,' saith Mistress Dorothy. 'Whenthe brazen serpent had become an idol, Jehoshaphatcalled it a piece of brass, and broke it in pieces.' Ican see something in that. The sacrilege, then, isthe idolatry, not in the destruction of the idol. Butalas, if we set ourselves to destroy all things thathave been, or can be made into idols, where are weto stop? Some people made idols of the verystones of their houses, without any scriptures thereon,or of their firesides, without the sacred pictures.There are two things, however, which fill me withespecial reverence in these Puritan ways. First, thissweet and sacred family piety. Second, or ratherfirst, for it is at the root of all, the intense convictionthat every man, woman, and child, in every wordand work, has to do directly with God, and that he,by virtue of being divine, is nearer us than all thecreatures; that to Him each one is immediatelyresponsible, and that, therefore, on his word onlycan it be safe for each one to believe or doanything. Such conviction gives a power which ceasesto be wonderful only when you think of its source.But alas, alas! what if this Divine word be misunderstood.

"July.—Roger Drayton has come, on a few days'leave, to be present at his sister's wedding.

"He hath brought the strange news that theking is in the keeping of the army. We scarcelyknow whether to mourn or rejoice. It came abouton this wise, as Roger told my Mother and me:—

"It was reported in the army that the Presbyterianparty in the Parliament designed to remove theking from Holmby, where he was, to Oatlands, nearLondon, there to make a separate treaty, in whichthe soldiers were not to be consulted or considered.

"On the fourth of June, therefore, Cornet Joyce,without commission, it seems, from any one, butsimply as knowing that it would be agreeable tothe army; and to prevent this design of a separatePresbyterian treaty, went, with some seven or eighthundred men, to Holmby House, where His Majestyhad remained since we saw him in April.

"The Commissioners of the Parliament, whowere His Majesty's jailers, were very indignant atthis interference of Cornet Joyce, and commandedthe gates to be closed, and preparations to be madeto resist an assault. Their own soldiers, on thecontrary, were of the same mind with the army andthe Cornet, and threw open the gates at once totheir comrades. Nor was the king himself, it seems,unwilling. When Cornet Joyce made his way tothe royal presence, the king spoke to him withmuch graciousness. He asked the Cornet if hewould promise to do him no hurt, and to force himto nothing against his conscience. Cornet Joycedeclared he had no ill intention in any way; thesoldiers only wanted to prevent His Majesty beingplaced at the head of another army, and that hewould be most unwilling to force any man againsthis conscience, much less His Majesty. The king,therefore, agreed to accompany him the next day,this happening at night.

"The next morning, at six o'clock, His Majestycondescended to meet the soldiers.

"He again demanded to know the Cornet's authority,and if he had no writing from the general,Sir Thomas Fairfax.

"'I pray you, Mr. Joyce,' he said, 'dealingenuously with me, and tell me what commission youhave.'

"'Behind me,' said the Cornet, pointing to histroopers; 'and I hope that will satisfy your Majesty.'

"'It is as fair a commission,' he said, 'and as wellwritten as I have ever seen in my life; a companyof as handsome and proper gentlemen as I have seena great while. But what if I should yet refuse to gowith you? I hope you would not force me! I amyour king. You ought not to lay violent hands onyour king. I acknowledge none to be above me butGod.'

"Cornet Joyce assured His Majesty he meant himno harm; and at length the king went with thesoldiers as they desired, they suffering him tochoose between two or three places the one he likedbest.

"So, by easy stages, they conducted him toChilderley, near Newmarket. And it is said theking was the merriest of the company. Heavensend it to be a good augury.

"Roger said, moreover, that His Majestycontinues to be of good cheer, and the army to befriendly disposed towards him. They have hope yetthat Sir Thomas Fairfax, General Cromwell, andIreton may make some arrangement to which HisMajesty may honourably accede.

"And, meantime, they allow him not only theattendance of his faithful servants, but his ownchaplains to perform the services of the Church, whichthe Presbyterians refused him at Holmby. Englishmen,especially the common people, and most ofall, I think, English soldiers, have honest heartsafter all; safer to trust to than those of men armedcap-a-pie in covenants, and catechisms, andconfessions. Surely the king will yet win the hearts ofthe army, and all will yet go right. Roger,meanwhile, is as stately in his courtesy to me as aSpanish hidalgo, listening and assenting to all I say in away I detest. For it means that he feels ourdifferences too deep to venture on."

"July 2nd.—Roger has begun to contradict andcontrovert me again delightfully. This morning wehad our first serious battle.

"Yester eve I said something about abhoring allmiddle states of things. It was in reference to thepoor peasants flocking around the king. I saidthere was no poetry in mid-way things, or times, orstates, in mid-day, mid-summer, middle-life, or themiddle-station in the state.

"He took this up earnestly after his manner, andwent into a serious argument to prove me wrong. Itwas but a weakling and half-fledged poesy, quoth he,which must needs go to dew-drops, and rosy clouds,and primroses, and violets, for its smiles anddecorations, and could see no glory and beauty insummer or in noon. Summer with its golden ripeningharvests, and all its depths of bountiful life in woodsand fields; noon-tide with its patient toil or itsrapturous hush of rest; manhood and womanhood withtheir dower of noble work and strength to do it.He could not abide (he said), to hear the spring-tidespoken pulingly of as if it faded instead of ripenedinto summer, or youth as if it set instead of dawnedinto manhood. And as to the middle station in anation, its yeomanry and traders, nations must havetheir heads to think and their hands to work; butthe middle order was the nation's heart. If thatwas sound, the nation was sound, if that wascorrupt and base, the nation's heart was rotten atthe core. Which (ended he) he thought these lastyears, with all their miseries, had proved the heartof England was not.

"Roger Drayton has a strange way of his own indiscourse, of putting aside all your light skirmishingforces, and closing with the very kernel andcore of the people he has to do with. The way ofthe Ironsides, I suppose. I have been used to littlebut skirmishing in discourse among the youngerCavaliers; light jesting talk whether the heart orthe subject be grave or gay. Even serious feelingsbeing hidden for the most part under a mask oflevity. But Roger seldom, perhaps never, exactlyjests. His mirth, like a child's laughter, is fromthe heart, as much as his gravity. He will knowand have you know what you really honour, or love,or want, or dread.

"So it happened that to-day on the terrace wecame on the very subject I had intended always toavoid; General Cromwell.

"I chanced to allude in passing to some of thereports I had heard against the General, somecareless words about his praying and preaching withhis men.

"I had no notion until then how Roger reveresthis man, like a son his father, or a loyal subject hissovereign.

"He said, quietly, but with that repressed passionwhich often makes his words so strong, that noman who had ever knelt at General Cromwell'sprayers would jest at his praying, any more thanany man who had ever encountered him in battlewould jest at his fighting. That his word couldinspire his men to charge like a word from heaven,and could rally them like a re-inforcement. Thatafter the battle his strong utterance of Christianhope and faith could hearten men to die, as it hadheartened them to fight; that after such a battleas Marston Moor, while directing the siege-worksoutside York, he could find time to go down intothe depths of his own past sorrows to draw thenceliving waters of comfort for a friend (Mr. Walton)whose son had been slain, writing him a letter ofconsolation (which Roger had seen) containingwords deep enough 'to drink up the father's sorrow.'

"Then Roger spoke of the unflinching justice,which was only the other side of this samesympathy and care; how General Cromwell had twoof his men hanged for plundering prisoners atWinchester, and sent others accused of the same offenceto be judged by the royal garrison at Oxford,whence the governor sent them back with agenerous acknowledgment.

"'It isloyalty you feel towards General Cromwell,'I said, 'such a disinterested, ennobling,self-sacrificing passion as our Harry felt for the king.'

"'If God sends us a judge and a deliverer whatelse can we feel for him?' he said, at length; 'Ibelieve General Cromwell is the defender of the law,and will be the deliverer of the nation, and if hewill suffer it,' he added, in a lower voice, 'of theking.'

"'Is it true,' I asked, 'that, as you once told us,General Cromwell and the army are courteous to HisMajesty, and anxious to make good terms with him?Can it be possible that there may yet be an honourablepeace?' 'I believe,' he replied, 'that all thingselse are possible, if only it is possible for the kingto be true. But if a word, king's or peasant's, isworth nothing, what other bond remains betweenman and man? Forgive my rough speech. I knowyour loyalty is a sacred thing to you. If the kingwill deal truly, I believe General Cromwell willmake him such a king as he never was before. Butwho can twist ropes of sand? For one who isuntrue seems to me not to be a real substance at all,not even a shadow of a substance, but simply adream or phantasm, simplynothing.'

"I felt myself flush. We have sacrificed toomuch for His Majesty, not to believe in him. YetI fear he has other thoughts as to the double-dealingto be permitted in diplomacy than Harry had, ormany gentlemen who serve him.

"Adversity makes a king sacred if nothing elsecan. If the king's cause were once more to prosper,we might debate such things as these. But notnow, Roger. I dare not now.'

"He looked as if words were on his lips, he couldscarcely, with all his reserve and courtesy, holdback. But he turned away, and calling Lion fromthe pond where he was chasing some wild-fowl, wewent into the house.

"July 4th.—Dr. Antony has come for thewedding. He brought us a moving account of the twodays spent by the Royal children. James the Dukeof York, the Duke of Gloucester, and the PrincessElizabeth, with His Majesty, at Caversham, nearReading. The Independent officers of the armypermitted it. And they say General Cromwellhimself, having sons and daughters of his own, shedtears to see the affection of the king and theinnocent playfulness of the children, knowing so littleof the dangers around them.

"July 5th.—Olive looked wondrous fair as a bride,in her plain spotless dress, without an ornament,partly from Puritanical plainness, and partlybecause the family jewels went long since with thethimbles and bodkins of the London dames into thetreasury at the Guildhall. So grave and serene,pure and young, with her fair pale face, and hersmooth white brow and soft true eyes.

"She was married in the church, with some fragmentsof the marriage-service, the whole being forbidden.

"It was sweet afterwards to see her kneelwhile my Mother kissed her forehead, and placeda string of large pearls round her neck, with ajewel.

"They had always a singular love for each other,Olive and my Mother. The bride and bridegroomrode away together after noon-tide towards theirLondon home.

"July 6th.—This morning I rose early and wentdown to the pond in the orchard, and being ledback by the sight of it to the thought of Olive andold times, strayed on towards the Lady Well wherefirst we met.

"By the way I passed old Gammer Grindle's cottage,and finding the door open, early as it was,went in to tell her about the bride.

"And there I saw Cicely and the child again;and heard her terrible story of wrong and sorrow.

"It made me very sad, and as I went on towardsthe Well, it set me thinking of manythings.

"Why did Olive never tell me? But then Ithought how I had more than once wilfully refusedto believe evil of Sir Launcelot, choosing to believewhat I liked. And a cold shudder came over meas I sat by the Lady Well, to think how near dangerI had been, and how terrible it would have beenif I had cared for him (not indeed that I ever could).I meditated also whether it was not yet possible toget right done to Cicely. And I resolved as far asI could for the future never to believe anythingbecause I wished, but because it was true; that is,to try not to wish about things being true, butto search out honestly if they are. And I wasstanding looking into the Well, sunk deep in thesethoughts, wondering if any one ever really did quitedo this, when I heard a footstep and glancingupwards, I met Roger Drayton's eyes.

"And then he told me of his love. I cannot sayI had never thought of it before. I had sometimeseven thought it might one day come to somethinglike this, and had even imagined a little, what Ishould say, or perhaps, not so much what, as how Iwould say many wise things to him and manage itso ingeniously that in some marvellous way all thedifficulties about the Civil wars would vanish, hewould see he had made some mistakes, and I wouldacknowledge candidly that our side had not beenblameless, and then I might admit, that, perhaps,one day he might speak to me again on the othersubject. At least I know these dreams of minealways ended in my being left in perfect certaintythat Roger would one day join in the good cause,and Roger perhaps in a very little uncertainty as tothe rest.

"But everything went quite the other way.Roger was so much in earnest about what he hadto say, that what I had to say about politicsunfortunately went entirely out of my head. Roger hasleft me with anything but a certainty or probabilityof his ever being a Cavalier, as things are atpresent. And I have left him in no uncertainty at allabout the rest.

"I am afraid it was a golden opportunity lost.But how could I help it? When he showed allhis heart to me, how could I help his seeing mine?And since I am sure there is no one in the world tobe compared with Roger, how could I help his seeingthat I feel and think so? Besides, after all,there is something base in such conditions. Itmight have been trifling with his conscience. Andthat would have been almost a crime.

"Wherefore, I am sure I could not have doneotherwise, and I think I have done right.

"Yet we made no promises. We know we loveeach other. That is all. And I know he has lovedme ever since he can remember. And I know, withsuch a heart as his, once is for ever?

"And I know that now, if it were possible, thatthe whole world could come between us; a worldof oceans and continents, a world of war andpolitics and calumnies, it would always be outside,it would never come between our hearts.

"My Mother thinks so too. I feel now, forthe first time, in some ways what it is to have aMother's heart to rest on. Although through allher tender silence, I feel she sees more difficultiesin the way than I do.

"July 10th.—A world of oceans and continentsno separation! How boldly I wrote! Roger isgone back to the army; gone not half an hour,barely a mile away, scarcely out of sight. If Ilisten I fancy I can almost hear his horse hoofs inthe distance. And it seems as if that mile were aworld of oceans and continents, as if these momentssince he left were the beginning of an eternity,altogether beyond the poor counted minutes andhours and days of time. But a minute since, hishand in mine, and what may happen before I seehim again? How do I know if I shall ever see himagain? In love such as ours, ever and never soterribly intertwine!

"Unbelieving that I am. Now I shall have tolearn if I understand really anything of what it isto trust God and to pray.

As we came near our house which was not farfrom the river and from Whitehall, we saw somethingwhich moved me not a little, a coach beingdrawn to St. James's Palace, guarded by Parliamentsoldiers. A few people turned and gazed asit passed; and two children were looking out of thewindow. These were the Royal children beingtaken back to St. James's Palace after their twodays with the king at Caversham. There wassomething very mournful in beholding these youngcreatures, born to be children of the nation as wellas of the king, taken to their royal home as to aprison, dwelling in their own land as exiles, theirMother a fugitive in France, their Father a captiveamong his own people.

There is a terrible strength in the patheticmajesty which enshrines a fallen king; a well-nighirresistible power in the crown which has become acrown of thorns. A captive monarch is a moreperilous foe than a victorious army to the subjectswho hold him captive. How often during those sadyears, 1647 and 1648, I had to go over all the causesof the civil war again and again; Eliot slowlymurdered in his unlawful and unwholesome prison; thesilenced Parliaments; the tortured Puritans; theimprisoned patriots. How often I had to recall allits course—Prince Rupert's plundering; the king'srepeated duplicity, slowly wearing out the nation'slingering trust in him, and baffling all attempts atnegotiation. I had to repeat these things tomyself, by an effort of will again and again, in orderto keep true to our principles at all.

And the conflict with this rebound of instinctiveloyalty, which went on in my heart secretly, wasgoing on in the city openly at the time when wetook up our abode there.

So strong and general, indeed, was this reboundof loyalty, that in that August, 1647, which was ourhoneymoon, it seemed that the whole city ofLondon—at the beginning of the war the Parliament'svery strength and stay—was panting to return toits allegiance, led by the Presbyterian majority inthe House of Commons. The conflict seemed altogetherto have shifted its ground. The enemy nowdreaded by the city was not the king, but the armywhich its own liberal contributions and perseveringcourage had done so much to create. Like theGerman magician, Dr. Faustus, of whom Aunt Gretelused to tell us, the city crouched trembling beforethe untameable spirit it had evoked, as from momentto moment it grew into more terrible statureand strength.

Sunday the 1st August, 1647, my first Sunday inLondon, was a memorable day to me.

Through all the hush of the Puritan Sabbaththere was a deep hum of unrest throughout the city,a ceaseless stir of men walking in silent haste hitherand thither, or gathering for eager debate at thecorners of streets, in the squares, or in any public place.It was a notable contrast to the cheerful stir ofanimal life and the deep under-stillness at Netherby.

On the Friday before, the House of Commons hadbeen invaded, not as once in the beginning of thestrife by the king trampling on "Privilege" in questof five "traitors," but by a crowd of 'prentices withhats on, clamouring for the king against the army.

Then the two Speakers of the Lords and Commonshad fled to the army, with the mace, and allthe Independent members.

The eleven banished Presbyterian members hadreturned; among them Denzil Hollis (one of theking's fated "five traitors" who had afterwardswithstood the royal forces so gallantly at Brentford)and Sir John Clotworthy, whose zeal had pursuedArchbishop Laud with theological questionseven on the scaffold.

Recruitings, gatherings of men and arms, anddrillings and gun-practice had been going on in allquarters of the city on the Saturday.

On Monday these were renewed with the earliestlight of the summer morning. Drums beating,trumpets calling, 'prentices hurrahing on all sides,"No peace with Sectaries." The London militia,"one and all," against the factious army, thenbelieved to be couching tranquilly near Bedford.

But on Tuesday the army rose from its lair, andadvanced to Hounslow. Then all Southwark camepouring in terrified throngs across London Bridge,demanding peace with the army, and declaring theywould not fight. The Presbyterian General Poyntzwas indignant, and there was tumult and bloodshedin the streets.

Closer and closer that defied but dreaded monsterof an army came, every step forward and every haltwatched with fluctuations of hope and fear in thecity. The army, meanwhile, strong in the presenceof the king, the speakers, the mace, and Oliver Cromwell,looked on itself as not only representing butbeingall the three powers of the state combined, inspiredby an invisible power stronger than all states; andso it advanced majestically free from hurry ordisorder. Not a provision-cart or pack-horse wasstopped on its way into the city. And on Friday,August the 9th, the army appeared in the city,marching three deep through Hyde Park withboughs of laurel in their hats, through Westminster,along the Strand, through the City, to the Tower.In a day or two they were quietly establishedin the villages around, the headquarters being atPutney. The king was lodged the while at Hampton Court.

Not an act of vengeance nor of disorder, as far asI know, disgraced their triumph. Not that this wasany matter of wonder to us. Our wonder was thatsober and godly citizens should wonder at thesoberness and godliness of the army, every regimentof which was a worshipping congregation, and thesoul of it Oliver Cromwell.

Job Forster was sorely vexed at the evil reportsspread concerning the soldiers. We saw him oftenduring that autumn.

"Have they forgotten," he said, "that we havewon Marston Moor and Naseby for them? that wehave been marching through the land all theseyears, and not left a godly homestead nor a familythe worse for us throughout the length and breadthof the country? A man might think it was we whosacked Leicester and plundered and burnt villagesand farms far and wide. They should have heardthe prayers our poor men poured forth by the camp-fireson the battle-fields where we shed our bloodfor them. Such prayers as might well-nigh lift theroofs from their great vaults of churches, and belikethe great stone also from their hearts. Men creepingeasily among streets, praying safely as long asthey like behind walls, and sleeping every night onfeather-beds, might be the better for a good stretchnow and then in one of our Cromwell's marches,and a hard bed on the moors, and a good lookright up into the sky, beyond the roofs, and theclouds, and the stars, and the Covenants andConfessions."

Roger also chafed much at the citizens, but mostof all at their misunderstanding of GeneralCromwell. All that autumn, said Roger, the General,with Ireton, Vane, and Harry Marten, and otherfaithful men, were labouring hard to establishpeace on a lasting foundation, as the proposals ofthe army proved. They would have provided thatHis Majesty's person, the queen, and the royal issueshould be restored to honour and all personal rights;that the royal authority over the militia should besubject to the advice of Parliament for ten years;that all civil penalties for ecclesiastical offences (forinstance, whether for using or disusing the CommonPrayer), should be removed; that some old decayedboroughs should be disfranchised, and the representationbe made more equal; that parliaments shouldlast two years, not to be dissolved except by theirown consent, unless they had sat one hundred andtwenty days; that grand jurymen should be chosenin some impartial way, and not at the discretion ofthe sheriff. But no man would have it so. TheLevellers in the army clamoured for justice on the"Chief Delinquent," and declared that GeneralCromwell had betrayed them to the king. Therewas a mutiny which Cromwell himself barelysucceeded in quelling. The Presbyterians would notgive up the right to enforce the Covenant. Theking carried on negotiations at the same time withGeneral Cromwell, with the Presbyterians, and withthe Irish Papists; intending, as was showed, alas! toosurely, from intercepted letters, to be true tonone, except, perchance, the last.

On November the 12th, early in the morning, thenews flashed through the city, cried from street tostreet, that the king had fled from Hampton Court;and Roger, who was with us, that morning, said,—

"Once more General Cromwell would have savedthe king and the country. But the king will not besaved. Now he must turn wholly to the country."

"But what," replied my husband, "if the countryalso refuses to be saved by General Cromwell?"

"Then for a New England across the seas," saidRoger. "But we are not come to that yet."

For even after the king's flight Roger clung tothe hope of reconciliation, his hopes nourished bysecret fountains flowing from the very icebergs ofhis fears. For with the bond which bound Peopleand King, might be snapped for him the bond, notindeed of love, but of hope between him and Lettice.

Still throughout that dreary winter negotiationswent on between the Parliament and His Majestyat the Castle of Carisbrook. More and morehopeless as more and more men became mournfullyconvinced of the king's untruth. Until, in April, 1648,when, from the upper windows of our house, I couldsee on one side the trees bursting into leaf inSt. James' Park, and on the other the river shining witha thousand tints of green and gold with the reflectionof the wooded gardens of the palaces and mansionsfrom Westminster to the Temple; when thefleets of swans began to pass by on their way tobuild their nests in the reedy islets by Richmondor Kew, the news came from all quarters that,amidst all this sweet stir of natural life, the countrywas stirring with fatal insurrections from Kent tothe Scottish borders.

A few 'prentices were playing at bowls on Sunday,April 9th, in Moorfields, during church time.The train-bands tried to disperse them. Theyfought, were routed by the train-bands, but ralliedquickly to the old cry of "Clubs." All throughthat night we heard the tumult surging up anddown through the city. The watermen, a powerfulbody of men, joined them. The cry was, "For Godand King Charles." And not till the Ironsidescharged on them from Westminster was the riotquelled.

Then came tidings that Chepstow and Pembrokewere taken by the royalists, and that a Scottisharmy of forty thousand was coming across the bordersto undo all that had been done and to restorethe king.

About that time Roger came into the chamberwhere I was busied with confections, and unlacingand laying aside his helmet, he sat down in silence.

And then he told me of a solemn prayer-meeting,held throughout the day before at Windsor Castle,by the army leaders. How some of them, being"sore perplexed that what they had judged to dofor the good of these poor nations had not beenaccepted by them, were minded to lay down arms,disband, and return each to his home, there tosuffer after the example of Him who, having done whatHe could to save His people, sealed His life bysuffering." But others were differently minded, andstriving to trace back the causes of their presentdivisions and weakness, they came at last to whatthey believed the root, those cursed carnalconferences which their own conceited wisdom hadprompted them to the year before with the king'sparty.

Then Major Goffe solemnly rehearsed from theScripture the words, "Turn you at my reproof, andI will pour out my Spirit unto you;" and thereupontheir sin and their duty was set unanimously withweight on each heart, so that none was able tospeak a word to each other for bitter weeping, atthe sense and shame of their sins and their base fearof men." "Cromwell, Ireton, and his Ironsidesweeping bitterly! It was a thing not to forget,"said Roger, pausing.

"Then, Roger," said I, trembling, "if this wasthe sin they wept for, what is theduty they seebefore them?"

Roger bowed his forehead on his hands as theyrested on the table before him, and his reply camemuffled and slow.

"'To call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, toan account for that blood he hath shed and mischiefhe hath done to his utmost against the Lord's causeand people in these poor nations.' This is whatthey deem their duty," he said.

"But what men can ever have right to executethe law on a king?" I said; "on their own king?"

"Woe to the men who have to do it," said Roger;"but bitterer woe to the man who does not thework God sets him to do, whatever woe it bringson the doing. Olive, who gave," he added, mournfully,"sanction to Laud and Strafford's oppressions,and to Prince Rupert's plunderings?"

"Oh, Roger," I said, "let the thunderbolt, or thepestilence, or any of God's terrible angels do thiswork in His time. They are strong and swiftenough. It is not for men."

"Chepstow and Pembroke to be besieged andtaken; Wales to be reconquered; the Scottish armyof forty thousand to be driven back over theborders," he replied.

"There is an interval, Olive," he replied. "Thesethings must take time. But they must be done.In a few days, General Cromwell is to lead us forthto do them. The order is given for the army tomarch to Wales."

I did not venture to mention Lettice's name tohim. We both knew too well what a gulf this terribleresolve, if ever it came to action, must createbetween us. But before he left he said,—

"Olive, I don't think it is cowardice not to sayanything of this to Lettice yet. Her mother, shewrites to-day, is failing so sadly. And there are somany chances in battle. If I fall, I need not leaveon her memory of me what would so embittersorrow to her.

"And the king might escape," thought I. "HisMajesty had all but succeeded in getting throughthe bars of his chamber-window not a month since.But I did not say this to Roger."

On the next day, the 3rd of May, the army marchedforth, and with it Roger and Job Forster. Andmy husband went with them on his work of mercy.

So that this summer of 1648 was a very anxiousand solitary one for me. I longed much to see myFather, but he was occupied in quelling insurrectionin the North. And the city was so unquiet, Ithought it selfish to send for either of my aunts.

Not that I was without friends. Now and thenit fortified me greatly to have a glimpse of Mr. JohnMilton in his small house at Holborn; to hear hisstrong words of determination and hope for theEnglish people; and, perchance, to catch somestrains from his organ.

But my chief solaces were, first the morningexercises, between six and eight of the clock, atSt. Margaret's Church near the Abby, where there wasdaily prayer, and praise, and reading of God's word,with comments to press it home to the heart, fromdivers excellent and godly ministers.

And next, a friendship I had made with goodMr. John Henry a Welsh gentleman who kept the royalgarden and orchard at Whitehall, and lived in apleasant house close on Whitehall Stairs. His wifehad died scarce three years before, of a consumption,and it was edifying to hear him and his daughtersspeak of her virtue and piety; how she hadlooked well to the ways of her household, hadprayed daily with them, catechized her children, anddevoted her only son Philip to the work of theministry in his infancy, and how a little before she diedshe had said, "My head is in heaven, my heart is inheaven; it is but one step more and I shall be theretoo."

This friendship solaced me for many causes;primarily for three: in that Mr. Henry was a godlygentleman; in that he lived in a garden by fairwater, which reminded me of Netherby; and in thathe was a Royalist. For it did my heart good tonear some good words spoken for the captive king,poor gentleman; and I have been wont ever to gainbenefit from good men who differ from us on partypoints. With such we leave the party differences,and fly to the common harmonies, which are deeper.

Many a delightsome hour have I spent in Mr. Henry'shouse in the orchard, by the river, watchingthe boats, and gay barges, and the fishers, and thewhite fleets of swans, and the flow of the broadriver sweeping by, always like a poem of humanlife, set to a stately organ music, plying my needlemeanwhile beside the young daughters of the house,with cheerful converse. But most of all I loved tohearken to the father's discourse concerning theking and the court in the days gone by. How theyoung princes used to play with his Philip, and gavehim gifts, and had wondrous courtesy for him; andhow Archbishop Laud took a particular kindnessfor him when he was a child, because he would bevery officious to attend to the water-gate (whichwas part of his father's charge), to let the archbishopthrough when he came late from council, tocross the water to Lambeth; and how afterwardsthe lad Philip had been taken to see the fallenarchbishop in the Tower, and he had given him some"new money."

It was strange to think how the great River ofTime had borne all that stately company away,king, court, archbishop, council, like some fleetingpomp of gay barges beneath the windows, or likethe masques and pageants they had delighted in, ofwhich Mr. Henry told me. It was good, too, tohave such touches of simple kindness, as rememberinga child's taste for bright new money, throwninto the dark picture we Puritans had among us ofthe persecutor of our brethren. It is good for thepersecuted to feel by some human touch that theirpersecutors are human; good while the persecutedsuffer, good beyond price if ever they come to ruleand judge.

Sometimes, moreover, Mr. Philip the son camehome from Christchurch, Oxford, where he was astudent, and his discourse was wondrous sacred andpleasant for so young a gentleman. One thing Iremember he said which was a special solace to me.He would blame those who laid so much stress onevery one knowing the exact time of theirconversion. "Who can so soon be aware of thedaybreak," quoth he, "or of the springing up of theseed sown? The blind man in the Gospel is ourexample. This and that concerning the recoveringof his sight he knew not: 'But this one thing Iknow, that whereas I was blind, now I see.'" Whichwords have often returned to my comfort.In that, instead of sending me back into my pastlife, and down into my heart to look for tokens ofgrace, they set me looking up to my Lord, to seehis gracious countenance; and in looking I amenlightened, be it for the first time, or the thousandand first.

Meantime the great tide of Time was flowing on,bearing on its breast to the sea royal fleets, andlittle row-boats such as mine.

In July the sailors of the fleet suddenly declaredfor the king, landed the Parliament admiral, andcrossing the Channel, took on board the Prince ofWales, acknowledging him as their commander.

At this news my heart beat as high with hope asthe fiercest royalist's. The Prince of Wales with afleet in the Downs! the king his father in prisonclose to the shore at Carisbrook! what could hindera rescue? But no rescue was attempted. Weekspassed on—the opportunity was lost; the fleetwas won back to the Parliament, and the kingremained at Carisbrook. I have never heard anyattempt to explain why the prince neglected thischance of saving the king. It made my heart acheto think of the captive sovereign watching all thoseweeks for rescue, (for he sent to entreat it might beattempted) and listening for the sound of friendlyguns, and the appearance of a band of loyal seamen,all in vain.

Pembroke and Chepstow were retaken. GeneralCromwell wrote from Nottingham for shoes for his"poor tried soldiers," wearied with a hundred andfifty miles hasty marching across the wild countryof Wales towards the north. In August came thetidings of the total defeat of the Scottish army atPreston.

I had just received the news of this in a letter frommy husband, and was sitting alone in my chamber,tossed hither and thither in mind, as was my wontduring those anxious months, scarce knowing atany news whether to rejoice or to mourn, in thatevery victory of the army seemed but to bring astep nearer the fulfillment of that dreadful purposeof calling the king to account. By way of quietingthese uneasy thoughts, I rose to go to goodMr. Henry's, when a little stir at the door aroused me,and in another minute I was clasped to AuntGretel's heart, sobbing out my gladness at seeing her.

"Hush, sweetheart, hush," she said, "that is theworst of surprises. I meant to save thee suspense,and to make as little disturbance as possible."

"I wanted thee so sorely," said I. "It is notthy coming that has so moved me; it was thetrying to do without thee."

In half an hour she had unpacked her small bundle,and established herself in the guest-chamber,with everything belonging to her as quietly in itsplace, as if it had never known another. Herpresence brought an unspeakable quiet with it. Thesolitary house became home again. And in anotherfortnight we were rejoicing together over my first-born,our little Magdalene; the fountain of delightopened for us in the desert of those dreary times.

Preston was the last battle of that campaignworthy the name. The Scottish royalist army wasbroken up, and General Cromwell was welcomed inEdinburgh, and by the Covenanters everywhere, asthe deliverer of the land.

Throughout September the king was holdingconferences at Newport with the Commissioners of theParliament. All bore witness to the ability andreadiness with which he spoke. His hair had turnedgray, his face was furrowed with deep lines ofcare, but all the old majesty was in his port, andeven those who had known him before weresurprised at his learning and wit.

But, alas, it was mere speech. The king wroteto his friends excusing himself for makingconcessions, by the assurance that he merely did it inorder to facilitate his escape.

And more than that, all the actors in that drama,sincere or not, were rapidly fading into mereperformers in a pageant. The decisive conferenceswere held, the true work was done. The doom wasfixed elsewhere.

By the middle of November the army, victoriousfrom Wales and Scotland, and mindful of theprayer-meeting at Windsor, was again at St. Albans,calling for justice on the Chief Delinquent.

On the 29th of November the king was removedfrom Carisbrook to Hurst Castle, a lonely, bareand melancholy fort opposite to the Isle of Wight,whose walls were washed by the sea.

On December the 2d the quiet of Mr. Henry'shouse and of the royal orchard was broken, by thearrival of a portion of the Parliament army atWhitehall, trampling down with heavy armed treadthe grass which had grown in the deserted palace-court.

On Sunday there was much preaching in manyquarters, of a kind little likely to calm the storm.In the churches the Presbyterian preachers declaimedfervently against the atrocity and iniquity ofseizing the person of the king. In the parksIndependent soldiers preached on the equality of allbefore the law of God. "Tophet is ordained of old,"one of them took for his text. For the king it isprepared. A notable example, my husband said,of that random reading of the Sacred Scriptureswhich turns them into a lottery of texts to conjurewith, like a witch's charms.

In the Parliament my old hero Mr. Prinne, withhis cropped ears and his branded forehead, stoodup and boldly pleaded for the king, never braver, Ithought, than then.

On the 5th of December came another invasionof the Parliament House, Colonel Pride and hissoldiers turning all the Presbyterian and Royalistmembers back from the doors. "Pride's Purge."

It was a sorely perplexed time. Had the veryact of despotism which first roused the nation tothe point of civil war now to be repeated in thename of liberty for the ruin of the king?

"What are we fighting for? I used to ask myself.The battle-cries, as well as the front of the armies,had so strangely changed. For the king andParliament? The king was in prison. The Parliamentwas reduced to fifty members. For the nation?The nation was half in insurrection. For liberty?No party seemed to allow it to any other.

Roger and the Ironsides alone seemed clear as tothe answer. "We are fighting—not under sixhundred members of Parliament, nor under fifty, butunder one leader given us by God; under GeneralCromwell," he said. "And he is fighting for thecountry, to save it and make it free and righteous,and glorious in spite of itself. When he has doneit, it will be acknowledged. Till then he must becontent to be misjudged, and we must content heshould be, as the heroes have been too often, andthe saints nearly always, until their work, perhapsuntil their life, is done."

I lay awake much during those nights of December.My little Magdalene was often restless, and Iused to listen to the flow of the river through thesilence of the sleeping city and think how the seawas washing the walls of the king's desolate prison,praying for him, and for General Cromwell, and all,and thanking God that my lot was the lowly oneof submitting instead of that of deciding, in theseterrible times.

But a sorer sorrow was advancing slowly on usall. On the 10th of December came an imploringletter from Lettice, saying that her mother hadfailed sadly during the last week, that she and hermother longed for Dr. Antony, and her mother evenmore for me and the babe.

The next day we were on the road to Netherby,Aunt Gretel, my husband, the babe, and I.

We were met with a hush, which fell on me likea chill. The Lady Lucy had fallen into one of thosequiet sleeps which of late had become so rare withher, and the whole household was quieted so as notto disturb her.

The subdued tone into which everything falls, ina house in which there has been long sickness, andwhere everything has been ordered with referenceto one sufferer, fell heavily on us, coming in fromthe fresh autumn air with voices attuned to thebracing winds, and hearts eager with expectationsof welcome. It was like being ushered into a churchhushed for some mournful ceremony; and we steppednoiselessly, and spoke under our breath, untilan unsubdued wail from the only creature of thecompany unable to understand the change, the babywaking suddenly from sleep, broke the dreary spellof stillness.

The Lady Lucy heard the little one's cry, andsent to crave a glimpse of us all that night.

In her chamber alone, throughout the house thatanxious hush was absent. She spoke in her naturalvoice, though now lower than even its usual sweetlow tones, from weakness. She had a brightwelcoming word for each, and while gratefully heedingmy husband's counsel, declared that baby would beher head physician. The very touch of the softlittle fingers and the sound of her little cooings andcrowings had healing in them, she said.

She looked less changed than I had expected.But my husband shook his head and would givelittle promise. Lettice seemed to me more alteredthan her mother. Her eyes had a steady, deep,watchful look in them, very unlike her wontedchangeful brilliancy. She said nothing beyond afew words of welcome to me that night. But thenext morning the first moment we were alonetogether she took my hands, and pressing them to herheart, she said,—

"Tell me Olive; I have been afraid to ask anyone else, but I must know. What do they mean byPetitions from the army for justice on the King?"

I was so startled by her sudden appeal, I couldnot meet her eyes nor think what to say. I couldonly murmur something about there having been somany Petitions, Remonstrances, and Declarations,which had ended in talking.

"True," said she, "but the army are like no otherparty in the state. They do not end with talking.They know what they want, and mean what theysay, and do what they mean. What do theymean by Petitions against the Chief Delinquent?"

"Many do think, Lettice," I said, "that the king himself,and not only his counsellors, began all the evil."

"I know," she replied. "But they have had justiceenough on the king, I should think, to satisfyany one. They have deprived him of all power,separated him from the queen and the royal children,and all who love him, and shut him up behindiron bars. And now, they petition for justice onhim. What would they do to him worse, Olive?What can he suffer more? What has the king leftbut life?"

"To touchthat, Olive," she continued, lookingsteadily into my eyes, and compelling me by thevery intensity of her gaze to meet them, "to touchthat would be crime, the worst of crimes. It wouldbe regicide, parricide."

"But how could it ever be, Olive?" She wenton. "They have assassinated kings I know beforenow. But a king brought to justice (as they call it)like a common criminal! Since the world was, sucha thing was never known. It can never be, Olive,she added in a trembling voice, "I have heard theking dreads assassination. Do you? Could hisenemies descend to that depth?"

"Never, Lettice," I replied, "never." And insaying thus I could meet her eyes frankly andfearlessly.

"Never! no, I believe not. Then there can surelybe little fear. There is no tribunal which can judgethe king. No bar for him to stand arraignedbefore but the judgment-seat of God. A king wasnever condemned and put to death deliberately andsolemnly in the face of his own people, and of allthe nations. Never since the world was. And itnever could be. From assassination you are surehe is safe. Be honest with me, Olive. There arebase men in all parties. You aresure?"

"Then there can be no reason to fear," she said."I will cast away this awful dread. Oh, Olive," sheexclaimed, bursting into tears, "you have broughtme new life. Do you know that sometimes duringthese last few days, since I heard of those Petitions,I have almost prayed that if such a fearful crimeand curse could be hanging over England, myMother might be taken to God first, and learn aboutit first there, where we shall understand it all. Butyou have comforted me, Olive. I need make nosuch prayers. What I have so dreaded can never be."

I felt almost guilty of falsehood in letting herthus take comfort. Yet if my husband's fears aboutLady Lucy were well-founded, there was little needfor such a prayer. And to Time I might surelyleave it to unveil the horrors that after all mightbe averted.

But no intervention from above or from belowcame to avert the steady unfolding of the greattragedy on which the nation's eyes were fixed.

The king went on to his doom, as the doomed insome terrible old tragedy of destiny, tremblinglywatchful for the storm to break from the side whencethere was no danger, but all the time advancingwith blind fearlessness to confront the lightningswhich were to smite him.

In the solitary sea-washed walls of Hurst Castlehe listened for the stealthy tread of the assassin.And when at midnight, on the 17th of December,the creak of the drawbridge was heard between thedash of the waves, and then the tramp of armedhorsemen echoing beneath the castle-gate, the kingrose and spent an hour alone in prayer. ColonelHarrison, who commanded these men, had beennamed to him as one likely to be employed toassassinate him. "I trust in God who is my helper,"said the king to his faithful servant, Herbert; "butI would not be surprised. This is a fit place forsuch a purpose," and he was moved to tears; nounmanly tears, and no groundless fears. He wasnot the first of his unhappy race who had been thevictim of treacherous midnight murders. But whenon the morrow he recognized in Colonel Harrison'sfrank countenance and honest converse one incapableof such baseness, his spirits rose, and he rodeaway almost gayly with his escort of gallant andwell-mounted men, courteous enough in theirdemeanour to him. In the daylight, and in the royalhalls of Windsor, where they lodged him, he feltstrong again in the sacredness of the king's person, andalas he fancied himself strong in those false schemesof policy which, and which only, had divested hisroyal person of its sacredness in the hearts of hispeople. "He had yet three games to play," he said,"the least of which gave him hope of regaining all."

On the 5th of January he gave orders for sowingmelon-seed at Wimbledon; and dwelt on LordOrmond's work for him in Ireland. He made a jestof the threat of bringing him to a public trial.Kings had been killed in battle, treacherously putto agonizing deaths in dungeons whose walls tell notales, and let no cries of anguish through, secretlystabbed at midnight. But the rebels it seemedplain were not foes of that stamp. Even the examplethree of his Cavaliers had lately given them intreacherously assassinating Rainsborough, one ofCromwell's bravest officers at Doncaster, kindled inthe most fanatical of the Roundheads no emulation,but simply a burning indignation and contempt.Save the sword of battle, or the dagger of themurderer, no weapon was known wherewith to kill aking. The Roundheads did not number assassinationamong their "instruments of justice." Thewar was over. What then was there for HisMajesty to fear?

Strafford, indeed, had been almost as confident upto the last. And neither gray hairs or consecrationhad saved the Archbishop's head from the scaffold.But between an anointed king and the loftiest ofhis subjects, according to the royal and the royalistcreed, the distinction was not of degree but of nature.

All the courts of Europe surely would rise andinterfere ere a king should be tried before a tribunalof his lieges, of creatures who held honour and lifeby his breath.

Nor only earthly courts. Would the One Tribunalbefore which a sovereign alone could besummoned, suffer such an infringement of itsrights?

So the king went on jesting at the thought of hissubjects bringing him to trial, playing his "threegames," and peacefully sowing seeds for moreharvests than one.

And meanwhile Cromwell came back slowlyadvancing from Scotland to London; Petitions forJustice on the Chief Delinquent lay on the table ofthe House of Commons not unheeded; on the 6thof January, Colonel Pride, with his soldiers,guarded the door of the House of Commons, and sentthence every member who disposed still to prolongtreaties with the king; in the afternoon of that same6th of January, General Cromwell was thankedby the "purged" house, or Rump, of fifty members,for his services, and the High Court of Justicewas instituted for the trial of "Charles Stuart, fortraitorously and tyrannically seeking to overthrowthe rights and liberties of the people." And on the19th of January, not three weeks after he had beentranquilly planning at Westminster for his summergarden crops, and sowing seed for other harvests inIreland, the king was sitting in Westminster Hallarraigned before this Court as a "tyrant, traitor,and murderer."

And still only were the heavens unmoved, butnot a word of remonstrance or of generous pleadinghad come from one crowned head in Europe.

But meantime over our little world at Netherbythat awful Presence was hovering to which all theoutward terrors that may, or may not surround it,the midnight dagger, the headsman's axe, the crowdsof eager gazers around the scaffold, are but as thetrappings of the warrior to his sword, or the glitterof the axe to its edge. Death was silently wearingaway the little remaining strength of LadyLucy Davenant.

There was one amongst us nearer the beginningof the new life than any of us knew, so near thatthe roar of the political tempest around us washushed ere it reached her chamber, and she layon the threshold of the other world almost asunconscious of the storms of this as our little infantMagdalene, whose cradle she used to delight tohave beside her.

I can remember, as if it were yesterday, the dimtender smile with which she used to watch the babeasleep beside her.

"There seems to me something strangely alike,Olive, in the darling's place and mine, though to alloutward seeming so different. I lie and look ather and think of the angels in the Percy Shrine atthe Minster at Beverly, how they bear in theirarms to Jesus a little helpless new-born soul, andHe stretches out His hands to take it to His bosom—asoul new-born from death, to the deathless lifewith Him.

"Sometimes it seems like that, Olive, what iscoming to me; so great and perfect the change.Sometimes so easy and simple; more like layingaside garments we have worn through the nightbathing in the water of life, and stepping refreshed,strong, and 'clothed in raiment clean and white'—intothe next chamber, to meet Him who awaits usthere. So little the change, for we have in us thetreasure we shall bear with us. The new eternallife is in our Lord, and not in any state or time;and since we have him with us, both here and there,it seems only like stepping a little further into theFather's house—from the threshold to the innerchambers—and hearing Him nearer and seeing Himmore clearly. Tell Lettice I had these comfortingthoughts, Olive," she would say; "I cannot speakto her, she is too much moved; and she wantsme to say I long to stay on earth, and I cannot,Olive. I cannot feel at home any more here sinceHarry is gone. And I am so weak and sinful, Imay do harm, as well as good by staying longer,even to Lettice, poor tender child. The world—atleast the world here in England—is very dark tome. And sometimes I think it will all soon end,not this war only, but all wars, and the kingdomcome for which the Church prayed so long, and theglorious Epiphany."

One thing I remarked with Lady Lucy, as withothers whom since I have watched passing fromthis world of shadows into the world of real things.The lesser beliefs which separate Christians seemedforgotten, fallen far back into the distance and theshade, in the light of the great truths which are ourlife—which are Christianity. The spontaneousutterances of such Christian deathbeds as I have watched,have had little of party-beliefs, and of party-politicsnothing. As Lady Lucy herself once said,—

"Oh, if all could only see Him as He is! We aredivided because we are fragments: the whole raceis fallen and broken into fragments. But in Him,in Christ, all the broken fragments are one againand live. Truth is no fair ideal vision: it is Christ."

And again she would speak of her death withinfinite comfort. "He died really—really as I must,"she said; "the flesh failed, the heart failed, but heovercame. He offered Himself up without spot toGod, and me, sin-stained as I am, in Him—the Son,the Redeemer, the Lord. And the Father was inHim, reconciling the world to Himself. And weare in Him, reconciled, for ever and ever."

Now and then she would ask if we had heardnews of the king. And we gave her such generaland vague accounts as we dared, deeming it unmeetto distress her with perplexities which would so soonbe unperplexed to her. And this was easy, herattention being seldom now fixed long on any subject.

On the 6th of January Roger came on his way toLondon from the North—on the old Christmas day,which Lady Lucy had continued to keep.

In the afternoon when she saw Roger, connectinghim with the army and the king, she asked at oncefor his Majesty.

"At home!" she said with a smile; "at homeagain for the Christmas. That is well."

Roger made no reply, and, to the relief of all,her mind passed contentedly from the subject. Shetook Lettice's hand and Roger's in hers, and pressedthem to her lips, and murmured, "My God, I thankThee." And then, as a faintness came over her,we all withdrew but Lettice.

Roger and I were alone in the ante-room. Hewas waiting to bid Lettice farewell. When shecame out of her mother's chamber she sat down onthe window seat, her eyes cast down, her tremblingmute lips almost as white as her cheeks.

Roger went towards her, and stood before her;but she made no movement and did not even lifther eyelids, heavy and swollen as they were withmuch weeping.

"Lettice," he said, "let me say one word beforeI go. Let me say one word to comfort you in thissorrow, for is not your sorrow mine?"

"Of what avail?" she said. "You are takingthe king to London to die. The greatest crimeand curse is about to fall on the nation, and youwill go and share and sanction it, and make it yourown. No word of mine will move you—how canword of yours comfort me? You will, if you arecommanded by him you have chosen for your priestand king, keep guard by the scaffold while the kingis murdered. Did not you tell me so two hourssince? Did not I entreat and implore and tell youyou were digging a gulf, not only, between me andyou, but between you and heaven?"

He stood for a few moments silent and motionless,and then he said: "And did I not tell you,that, as a soldier I could do no otherwise unless Ideserted my chief, nor as a patriot unless I betrayedmy country? It is the king who has betrayed us,Lettice; who has refused to let us save him andtrust him. The hand that could have stopped allthe oppression and injustice at the source—from thebeginning—anddid not, must be the guiltiest handof all. It isfalsehood that is leading the king tothis end, not the country, nor the Parliament, norGeneral Cromwell."

At last she looked up,—"Do not try to persuademe, Roger," she said, "God knows I am too willingto be persuaded. I cannot reason about it any morethan about loving my Mother or obeying my Father.I dare not listen to you. I am untrue," she added,bursting at length into passionate tears, "I havebeen a traitor, to let my Mother be deceived—to lether thank God for what can never be!"

"Lettice," he said in a tone of anguish, "if youreproach yourself, if you call yourself a traitor, whatam I?"

"You are as true as the Gospel, Roger," she said,her sobs subsiding into quiet weeping; "as true asheaven itself. You would never have done what Idid. You would break your own heart and everyone's rather than utter or act one falsehood, orneglect one thing you believe to be duty. That is whatmakes it so terrible."

His voice trembled as he replied,—"You trust me,and yet you think me capable of a terrible crime."

"I know that to lay sacrilegious hands on theking is an unspeakable crime," said she; "but totrust you is no choice of mine. I cannot tear thetrust of my heart from you if I would, Roger, andGod knows I would not if I could."

A light of almost triumphant joy passed over hisface, as, standing erect before her, with folded arms,he looked on her down-cast face,—

"Then the time must come when a delusion thatcannot separate us in heart can no longer separateus in life," he said, in tones scarcely audible."Your Mother said the truth, Lettice, when shejoined our hands. Such words from her lips atsuch a time are surely prophecy."

"My Mother saw beyond this world," she said,mournfully; "where there are no delusions, and nodivisions, and no partings."

He bent before her for an instant, and pressed herhand to his lips. And so they parted.

That night Lettice and I watched together byLady Lucy's bedside. And all things that coulddistract and divide seemed for the time to bedissolved in the peace of her presence.

She revived once or twice and spoke, although itseemed more in rapt soliloquy than to any mortalear.

"Everything grows clear to me," she said once;"everything I cared most to see. The divisionsand perplexities which bewilder us here are onlythe colours the light puts on when it steps on earth.On earth it is scarlet and purple and bordered work;in heaven it is fine linen, clean and white, clean andwhite."

Often she murmured in clear rapid tones, veryawful in the silence of the sick-chamber at night,the words,—

Lettice and I feared to go to her to ask what shemeant, dreading some question we dared notanswer. We thought belike her mind was wandering,as she did not seem to be appealing to us orlooking for an answer.

But at length the words came more distinctly,though broken and low, and then we knew whatthey meant,—

"The King! King of kings! Faithful and true.Mine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. Heshall deliver the needy when he crieth, King of thepoor, King of the nations, King of kings, Faithfuland true. I am passing beyond the shadows. Ibegin to see the lights which cast them. Beyondthe storms—I see the angels of the winds. Beyondthe thunders—they are music, from above. Beyondthe clouds—they are the golden streets, fromabove. Mine eyes shall see the King—as He is;as thou art; no change in Thee, but a change inme. In Thy beauty as Thou art."

All the following day the things of earth weregrowing dim to her, but to the last her courtesyseemed to survive her strength. No little servicewas unacknowledged; even when the voice wasinaudible, the parched lips moved in thanks or inprayer.

And on the early morning of the 21st of Januaryshe passed away from us, her hand in Lettice's,her eyes deep with the awful joy of some sightwe could not see.

On the evening of that very day came the tidingsthat the king had been brought, on the 19th ofJanuary, as a criminal, before the High Court of Justicein Westminster Hall, to be tried for his life asthe "principal author of the calamities of the nation."

When Lettice heard it, the first burst of tearscame breaking the stupor of her sorrow, as shesobbed on my shoulder, "Thank God she is safe,beyond the storms of this terrible distracted world.She is gone where she will never more be perplexedwhat to believe or what to do."

"She is gone," said my Father, tenderly takingone of her hands in his, "where loyalty and loveof country, and liberty and law are never atvariance; where the noblest feelings and the noblesthearts are never ranged against each other. Andwe hope to follow her thither."

"Look up and press forward, my child," hereplied, "and the way will become clear. Step bystep, day by day; the space between is the waythither."

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The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Draytons and the Davenants

THE

Draytons and the Davenants

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

Movatterモバイル変換

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Draytons and the Davenants

THE Draytons and the Davenants

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

THE

Draytons and the Davenants